Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent
by Laila Burns
Summary: 'A woman so naïve to his sins that it's like a chill spring shower. He's never met anyone in his life who hasn't judged him before he's even opened his mouth. Who hasn't known to call him Kingslayer. Jaime Lannister.' Perhaps here is his chance for salvation. Following the end of Season One, the Game continues. Very AU. Eventually Jaime/OC. WARNING: Here be dragons.
1. Author's Note and Taster

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I was aware that GRRM disapproves of ASOIAF fanfiction, which made me a little reluctant to post this story, but I reckoned that the visual beauty and general wonderfulness of GoT series 2 was just asking for something to be written. I've not published a fanfiction for a while, but I've finally found myself at the beginning of a Summer where I have very little life getting the way of writing! This story has been lounging in 100 or so pages of word for the past few months, so it was finally time to air it and hammer it into some kind of plot.

This story is rated M, so it may include strong violence, language, sexual content (as you'd expect with ASOIAF…)

You will only need a general knowledge of GoT to read this, and seeing as you're looking at GoT fanfics I assume that's a given! It's set following Jaime's capture by Robb Stark at the Whispering Wood, Catelyn hasn't yet gone to talk with Renly and everyone's still ignoring Stannis.

This will be AU, so you have been warned and for those who do not want to, or have yet to read the books - Fear not!- this is unlikely to contain any proper spoilers - only my own view of how the game will play out.

**Disclaimant - **Everything you recognise, belongs to GRRM, the rest is mine.

Happy Reading!

**Taster**

'Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York-'

Richard III

•

She's never killed anyone before. Why should she have? No-one she knows from home has killed anyone. No one.

What is it, to take a life?

She wishes she'd asked Jaime before, during one of their long talks. She could have prepared herself.

But it's now or never.

She understands what to do. She's seen it in films. As her feet take her forward, she wonders if it will be harder than it looks. Perhaps the skin of a man's throat is tougher than they say, perhaps he struggles more. Is death longer in coming? A tall man like him could overpower her easily. Maybe she will be dead by the end of this. Frightened, she stills her thoughts, forcing a moment of echoing silence, so still she can hear the whisper of the leaves in the forest over her own breath, the man breathing before her in the darkness.

She will not falter. She can do this.

Him, or her.

Now the choice seems simpler; now that she's put a price on her life. He'll die, or she will.

And as it turns out, killing is easier than she had thought.

Once she's behind him in a rush, it's simple to bring her left hand up and drag it to his mouth. Her fingers press back his lips and graze his teeth, but before he can make a startled noise she's brought the razor blade hard across his throat.

Hot, warm blood bursts against her hand.

There's a sound as it spills; a rush. She can smell the iron.

It feels right somehow, to ease his crumple down onto the earth. He's tall, so it's awkward and she has to keep from falling with him. In the process her left hand comes from his mouth and her right is clutched against the flat of his chest with the blade still in her fingers. But he's not screamed, she realises. He's been brave.

As he dies silently, drowning in his own blood, she presses a hand to his brow. Strokes back greasy hair.

'Shh,' she whispers, half startled at her own voice. 'Hush, it's alright. It's alright.'

He's just a boy.

He's just a boy.

Dead now.

She stands, the razor dropping from her hands, fingernails stuck with red, hands shining.

She forces herself to bend and wrest the keys from his belt.

For a moment by the lock she fumbles with them, trembling. But the keys make too much noise to shake for long and she forces her hand into action. Slow and steady.

Gate now open, she crosses the last few meters to Jaime...


	2. To Know Noone

**Chapter One**

**To Know No-one**

•

She'd stormed out, the door shuddering shut on her parent's stunned faces. In hindsight it had been the worst thing to do. But she hadn't known that at the time.

The car headlights had come on her so fast she'd barely had time to register them and brake before the collision. There'd been a moment during the first spasms of impact when she'd sworn silently to herself. What a stupid way to go. Crushed between two human tin-cans traveling too fast. How horribly boring and idiotic. Fleetingly, she had thought of Phil. His bright smile and his soft, fair hair. And Liza.

There was an instant of pain, and then blinding white light. So bright it would have made her close her eyes if she'd had eyes to keep open. It sears all round her, till she feels raw and boneless and naked.

Then, it's gone. Quicker than it came, and she's alone with her darkness.

•

She's shaken roughly awake.

There's no sunlight, just the threatening glow of a flaring torch that catches the shadows in the men's faces. Lights the whites of their eyes and paints them hollow cheeked, sallow skinned.

'Get up!'

He's young. Younger then her, but he looks old, with a scruffy mouse brown beard and crooked teeth, a skinny face framed with lank curling hair. In the flames his eyes seem a little too pale and too far apart.

When she shrinks back wincing, the pain in her forearm making itself known, he grabs her bodily and yanks her upright.

She almost faints from the agony.

The man holds her roughly, his fingers digging into her upper arms. There'll be bruises.

'Who are you?'

He shakes her and she tries to pull loose, but he only holds her tighter.

Forcing her eyes open, holding her head up with what little strength she has left, she tries to look him in the face. The other men blur in and out of focus, their features distorted.

She clears her dry throat, the sound seeming weak even to her ears. 'I'm Ada, Ada Howard.'

The mans face seems to fall, as though he had hoping for some confession of guilt.

'Howard?'

The men around him murmur.

'What house are you? What Lord do you serve?'

'I-' she falters, she can't think. Not with her head pounding and her blood steaming hot through her veins, not with her arm hurting like the devils teeth.

He shakes her again, she can feel his fingernails dug through her thin shirt into her skin.

'Tell me!'

'I don't know.' She stumbles over her words. 'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a House, I don't have a Lord.'

The man glances at his men, and Ada uses the time to try to right herself a little more. She's unsteady on her feet and the thick undergrowth isn't helping.

'She's lying,' one man offers. 'She must be.'

'Take her to the King,' another says. 'He'll tell if she's a spy, or an enemy.'

Her captor seems to battle with himself.

'Very well.' He throws her toward one of the other men. 'We'll take her to the King, he can decide what to do with her.'

It had been warm at home. Ada shivers now in her loose long sleeved t-shirt and jeans, her sneakers rub her bare heels and every stone and bracken bush trips her. The man holding her has little patience and when he grabs her right forearm and makes her yelp, he just hoists her up and half carries her forward. It's almost a relief, even though he smells of sweat and smoke, and blood. He smells of blood, tannic and cloying. Her nose is pressed against the greasy fabric of his tunic, but he's wearing furs too and they prickle against her cheeks.

They move fast, covering the forest floor quickly and soon they meet an open stretch of grass.

The man sets her down with a shove and her feet move automatically, one of the blisters breaking and stinging as blood stains the back of her shoes and rubs it raw. But she doesn't stop.

There are lights at the far end of the field, flares and braziers. The dark shapes of men move around the fires, and tents are scattered between them.

They're stopped as they reach the first flames.

'Who goes there?'

'Theon Greyjoy,' replies the younger man, his voice as harsh with the guard as it had been with her. 'Halfwit,' Theon mutters as they leave the guard behind.

Ada's shivering with cold now, and shock. Shock from the car crash that seems so far distant it's almost a dream but for the screaming pain in her head and arm.

They make for the centre of the camp, and Ada is quietly grateful as they enter a tent and the cold of the night is snuffed out as the fabric flap falls back.

Inside the tent is blue, thick furs cover the floor and there are braziers for warmth.

Another man, not much older than her first captor sits on a high backed wooden chair. Or throne. The King...

There's a woman beside him. Too old to be his wife.

'Theon, what's this?' His accent is rough and northern.

'I found her in the woods,' Theon spits, shoving her so hard that she falls to her knees before the man on the throne.

'Who is she?'

'Says her names Ada Howard. But I've never heard of her.'

The man- the King, stands. 'Do you know who I am?'

Ada looks up at him through her curtain of dark curls, there's something red in her eyes, blurring her vision.

When she wipes her brow with her hand it comes away bloody.

'No.'

He doesn't look pleased. 'I'm Robb Stark. King in the North.'

She swallows, unsure what to say. Should she bow? Or perhaps kiss his ring. But the bowing seems unlikely seeing as she's on her knees already, and she's doesn't feel in the mood for kissing the ring of a man who obviously isn't prepared to show her any manners.

'Who are you and what's your business?'

Her throat is suddenly dry. 'I'm Ada. Just Ada Howard-' She sits back on her heels and tucks her hair back behind her ears. 'I've no business. I don't know what I'm doing here, I was in a car accident and when I woke up I was here. In that forest.'

Robb's eyes look shrewd. Disbelieving and blue.

'Please!' she tries. 'It's the truth. I beg you-'

Theon steps forward. 'She's lying! She's a Lannister spy!'

'Theon!' the woman speaks for the first time. She has a voice like a mother. Kind. Firm. 'She's barely a grown woman, I hardly think the Lannisters would send a skinny cub to do their dirty work.'

Theon looks angry. 'That's what they want us to think-'

'Why would Tywin Lannister send a girl who looks more akin to a Baratheon to report on Robb or free his son? You are too quick to assume Theon, that she has anything to do with this.'

Theon starts forward, pointing at Ada. 'Then why was she in that forest then? Eh?' He turns to Robb, face angry. 'She could have killed the guard on duty and then she and Jaime Lannister would be skipping off back to Casterly fucking Rock!'

'Killed the guard with what Theon: her bare hands? Slipped out of here with the most recognisable man in Westeros? She's a child.'

'What's to say she's not Renly's spy, or Stannis'-'

'ENOUGH!'

Robb has startled everyone.

Ada's head pounds.

'Please-' she whispers. 'Don't shout.'

Robb ignores her.

He kneels before her and grabs her chin, crushing her cheeks between long, hard fingers. His face should be soft and made for laughter, that auburn stubble and curling hair. He should be handsome. Young. Sweet.

'Tell the name of your father, your mother. A brother? Someone to prove your innocence.'

'No-one I know lives here,' she tells him.

'To know no-one is a terrible thing,' Robb Stark tells her, his gaze stony. 'Who are you girl? And who sent you?'

She stares at him, defiant in her innocence.

His face seems to grow hard, his eyes blue steel.

'Very well.' He stands, brushes down his breeches. 'Perhaps a night outside in the cages will loosen her tongue.'

One of the men behind Ada steps forward. 'We've no room in with the prisoners, sire. Not since you captured all the Crag men.'

'What, nowhere for her?'

'Not if you want her alive tomorrow. There's two dozen starved men who've not seen sight of a woman for weeks. She'd not last the night.'

Robb Stark seems to consider for a moment. 'Put her in with the Kingslayer, we can't afford to waste any more guards on another cell.' And he turns from Ada, sentence made.

The woman, who Ada has decided is the King's mother, looks like she will say something, but Robb has already nodded to two of the men.

She's dragged out into the cold again and taken through the camp once more. Out to the very edge of the tents, to the very edge of the flames.

She can barely see it's so dark, the grass is black and gloom hangs round like thick fog. There's a cage, with thick wood struts and bars twined so close you'd barely be able to see through were the night any blacker. She catches a glimpse of a post, three wooden stakes arranged in the muddy ground and someone slumped against it. Asleep. Dead, maybe.

One man unbolts the door with a key from a round metal ring. They tie her hands and pull her backwards in the blackness. Her back smashes into the wooden struts and she's pushed forcefully downward. Her knees buckle a little and she ends up on her ass on the cold, damp ground.

Her hands are secured loosely to the pole and she's left. Left to the darkness and the cold wind and the man next to her. Dead. Or Asleep


	3. Just Ada

Kudos to my three lovely reviewers and all those of you who have alerted or favourited - so much love!  
Enjoy this chapter, and please drop me a line of your thoughts - reviews are like my ice-cream.

**.**

**Chapter Two**

**Just Ada**

_Her hands are secured loosely to the pole and she's left. Left to the darkness and the cold wind and the man next to her. Dead. Or Asleep._

_•_

Ada shivers violently. She wants to be sick. Her head spins, so she leans it back against the post and closes her eyes, swallows hard.

The dead man startles her by talking.

'So they've brought me a woman have they?' his voice is crushed and hoarse, his face barely visible in the dark and beneath a coat of grime and trails of blood. His eyes gleam. 'How kind of Robb Stark. But I don't think I'm up to much.'

She shrinks away. 'What?'

He seems surprised at the tone of her voice perhaps, the softness. The accent. She's not a commoner. Not a simple weaver's girl to poke fun at. 'Forgive me,' he apologises. 'That was rude of me. I'm afraid I'm not at my best, being tied to this pole for weeks has done little for my manners or my temperament.'

They sit in silence for a moment. Ada pushes the toes of her sneakers into the mud at her feet, listening to the sucking sound as the ground tries to swallow them.

'What's your name, child?'

She looks down. 'Ada.'

'Just Ada?'

She thinks of Robb. Of Theon. 'Just Ada.'

'Alright then Ada,' he says, angling his head to get a look at her. 'What have you done to upset Lord Stark so much that he's put you out here?'

She swallows. 'They think I'm a spy. A Lannistowe. Whatever a Lannistowe is-'

'Lannister,' he corrects her softly.

'Yes. That.'

'Are you?'

'No!'

'Do you know who I am?'

She turns her head. The movement hurts, but his face has enough charm and beauty beneath the layers of filth that the pain is almost worth it. But his is another face she does not recognise. 'No.'

There's a crooked smile on his face now. 'Truly?'

She shakes her head. 'Truly!'

'I'm Jaime Lannister, Captain of the Kingsguard. You'll hear people call me Kingslayer. Or the Lion of Lannister.' He mocks himself, affecting a reverence he clearly cares little for.

She frowns. 'You killed a King?'

'Yes.' His smirk drips irony. 'I killed a King.'

'Why?'

'Because he was mad. Because he murdered his people and because no-one else would- kill him that is.'

'Robb Stark's father?'

Jaime laughs, a short bark. 'Robb Stark's father was not a king, neither is he. My sister and Joffrey had Ned Stark killed. No, the King I killed was Aerys Targaryen. A tyrant, a cruel madman.'

'Then why are you here? If you didn't kill Robb Stark's father and you got rid of a mad King for them?'

He leans his head back, gives a bitter laugh. Eyes heavenward as though looking at the stars, yet the sky is clouded and the moon hung with fog. 'I am here because we're on different sides, Robb Stark and I. Because I should kill him given half the chance.'

'Where-' she falters. 'Where are we?'

'A field, child. Have you no eyes?'

She wants to snap at him for his taunting. 'No! I mean. Where are we?'

'You mean, Westeros?'

'Yes.'

'Near the Crag, I assume, somewhere between Ashemark and one of the godforsaken little settlements that cling to the hills here…' He sounds curious now, his head angled once more to look at her. She looks back, taking in his strong, obvious nose and his square jaw. His hair hanging lank about his face, parted roughly in the centre. 'Where are you from?'

'England.'

'And where is that? Inger-Land?'

Ada shivers, her breath hangs in the air before her. 'A long way from here.'

'Then if you're not a spy from my father, Just Ada. And you're not even from Westeros. What in the name of the seven are you doing tied to the same bastard post as me?'

She half laughs. The sound seems pained even to her ears, verging on hysterical. 'I don't know.'

He looks her up and down. 'You wear a strange garb.'

'A t-shirt… Jeans. Everyone wears them where I come from.'

He frowns. 'All the women? They wear braes? Breeches?'

She nods. 'They wear skirts and dresses too, but trousers, yes. Breeches.'

'Well, it's nice,' he offers, smiling. 'But not best made for Northern winters.'

She agrees quietly. 'It was summer where I was - before.'

'It's been summer here for a long time, all that's changing now.'

She quietens. She can't feel her fingers any more, and when she tries to move them she gets a sharp pain in her right forearm. Her arms are run with goose bumps, her hair is stuck across her face and there is nothing she can do about it.

'You're cold,' he comments.

Perhaps he has felt her tremors, as they are pressed close together round the narrow post, or maybe he heard her teeth rattling in her skull.

'Yes.' Her breath billows hot mist.

He shifts beside her, breathing quickening and more steam thrown up about them. With a little grunt of effort he's managed to shunt closer.

'Come here,' he tells her.

She looks at him, or what she can of him in the darkness. His face looks gaunt and trails of blood run from his hairline. But his eyes are kind and his mouth soft.

She shuffles closer.

'I'm not that warm,' he apologises. 'But there's some heat in me.'

She presses herself to his side and rests her head on his shoulder, presses her knees against the long straight length of his thigh and tucks her chin close to where his collar opens.

Jaime can feel her damp breath heating the skin of his throat.

He tips his cheek to the side until he's nearly touching the top of her dark curls, then softly he drops his head atop hers. She shifts, then settles.

'Thank you,' she whispers. 'That's the first kindness anyone's shown me here.'

'You're most welcome. Just Ada.'

He watches the night as she sleeps, playing through his head what had flashed into his mind when he met her first.

Charm her. Then make her lean close.

It would only take a few sharp blows to the back of head. She's a fragile little thing. The guard would come running.

He'd be easier, drag chain about his neck. It would be seconds before the breath was forced from him. Then he'd just have to take the key from the mans belt. He'd be free.

Jaime's not quite sure why he didn't.

Perhaps it's because she's a woman. Soft and warm against his side, a woman who is so naïve to his sins that it's like a chill spring shower. Refreshing. Unexpected. He's never met anyone in his life who hasn't judged him before he's even opened his mouth. Who hasn't known to call him Kingslayer. Jaime Lannister.

•

When dawn breaks, it's damp and grey and chill. She's slept a little. The night had been fractured with noises and when she blinks awake, her neck is stiff. Her shoulders cramp from huddling close to him in the dark.

He's already alert, his head leant back against the wood as he watches the men rouse themselves from their tents, start to rekindle fires and ward away the damp.

Ada shuffles away from him a little, easing her shoulders and rolling her neck, hoping to lift the dead ache in her muscles.

'Did you sleep?' she asks, as Jaime glances across at her inquiringly.

He dips his head. In the cool morning light she can see him clearer.

He's brown and filthy blond, beneath the blood and grime. His eyes are startling green, his eyebrows arch easily and his mouth is soft and thin. There's no denying his beauty, but weeks of the outside and beatings have darkened his eyes and left an unruly beard scraping across his cheeks and chin. There's a scab of red on his forehead from a blow or wound and his nose has been reddened and burnt raw by the sun that is hidden behind the thick clouds.

'You're staring,' he tells her.

She shrugs. 'Nothing else to look at.'

He laughs. Truly laughs, throws back his head and closes his eyes.

She wonders how long it's been since he last laughed like that.

'Am I funny?'

Jaime angles his head, green eyes catching hers, tailing the line of her jaw - caught on the softness of her mouth.

'Yes, I think you are.'

'What will they do with me?' she asks him, sniffing and turning to rub her nose against her shoulder.

'I'm not sure, what have you done?'

'Robb Stark asked me who I was, I told him. He didn't believe me. He thought that sending me out here to spend a night in a cage would 'loosen my tongue,' or something.'

'Has it?'

'Everything I told him last night was true, he just decided not to believe me.'

Jaime is struck by her forthrightness. 'Do all women in Inger-Land talk to Kings as boldly as you?'

'I thought you said Robb Stark wasn't a King. Besides, he showed me no courtesy,' she looks at Jaime. 'Do you believe me?'

He's silent for a moment. 'I've heard a lot of strange tales in my time, but the thought that there is a Land beyond the knowledge of the men of Westeros is not so very strange.'

Ada swallows. He thinks I'm mad. The thought makes her smile a little, because this is mad. This place, with Knights and Kings and battles and cages to keep prisoners in.

'How long have you been here?'

Jaime shrugs. 'Three weeks, maybe four.'

'Do they feed you?'

'Yes,' he pauses. 'When they remember. I'm their bargaining piece.'

'Let you wash?'

'They let me piss and shit, but no washing allowed.'

She winces.

'I'm not sure who I'd rather be with-' she begins, then realises how odd it sounds and stops.

They're silent for a moment.

'Who you'd rather be with?' He presses.

'Them, or you,' she looks at him, her arm beginning to ache again. 'I mean, they're barbaric enough to keep you tied up to a post for weeks, and you're stuck out here with a dubious moral past and a black humour.'

He quirks a brow. 'I'd say my humours pretty good.'

She snorts and leans her head wearily against his shoulder.

'What do I do if I think my arms broken?' she asks dully, after a couple of minutes.

Jaime stirs sharply. Looks down at the girl leant against him.

'You're hurt?'

She lifts her head. 'I was in an accident, I blacked out and then I turned up here.'

'What kind of accident?'

'A car crash- I mean… Carriages, you know, wagons.'

He's looking at her strangely.

'Is that where the cut on your brow's from?'

Ada wonders how ill she looks. 'Probably, does it look bad?'

'From where I'm standing.'

'Sitting.'

'Yes.'

She wets her lips.

'Your arm?'

'My right forearm,' she tries to sit up a little more, but her feet in their sneakers slip in the slimy mud and she ends up crushed awkwardly against him again. 'It's either cracked or broken. I can't move my fingers.'

'You need it reset.'

She laughs drily. 'Any doctors around here to do that for me?'

Jaime feels irrational worry building in his throat. 'If the bone isn't reset, could mean you lose the use of your hand.'

'Oh great,' she mutters quietly.

Jaime looks for someone, a man, a guard. 'Hey!' He shouts.

Ada stiffens beside him. 'Don't-'

'You need it sorted, I've seen men die from fractures, they bleed inside.'

Ada quietens.

'HEY!'

The guard comes over eventually, his face pinched and suspicious, peers through the bars at them.

'What do you want, Kingslayer?'

Jaime tries to draw himself up. 'The girl's hurt, her arm needs resetting.'

'Well we've no-one here can do that for her.' He seems nervous, as though looking at Jaime for too long will get him killed.

'Untie me and let me do it,' Jaime tells the man forcefully.

'Can't do that Kingslayer.'

'For the gods sakes man! Tie my ankles if you must, but let me help her.' He's angry for himself, as much as the little woman sat next to him. Angry that his words count for nothing here, where before in his life they rang loud. Commands spill easily from his mouth. It's unnerving to have them so ignored.

Ada tries to look pitiful and ill, but the guard isn't even glancing at her.

He swallows hard.

'Alright then.'

There's the rattle of keys, and the door is opened. Then shut behind him.

The man kneels by Jaime's feet and pulls a leather strap from his belt, lashes Jaime's ankles together.

Jaime watches the top of the man's head, bent at his feet. How easy it would be to kick a sharp blow, kick and kick and not stop till blood runs. Then he'd be able to make his escape. It's daylight, but the light is grey. Thick. If he moved fast- but Ada...

Cautiously, the guard moves behind them and Ada can feel cold shaking fingers untying her bonds. She tries not to move, incase she spooks him.

Jaime is untied next and she can see open relief on his face as he sits forward, hands loose.

'Alright,' he tells her. 'Bring your arms round slowly, let me see.'

Her shoulders shake as she does as she's told, and his hands are there to take hers.

He's cold and gentle, but nothing can distract her from the pain in her forearm. Jaime pushes the sleeve up carefully, under the nervous watch of the guard.

The flesh is stained black and blue, and there's a bump where the bone is stuck at an odd angle beneath the skin. His fingers are gentle, but even the press of cool fingertips seems to set her skin ablaze.

Jaime shakes his head. 'Fractured, I'll need to line the bone up.'

'Have you done this before?' she asks, voice thick.

Jaime looks up at her. 'I've had to wrench men's shoulders back into place on the Battlefield, tis a little break. It will be easy. Your muscles are not so strong in your forearm, they will not contract as much when the bone is realigned.'

Ada blanches, white as a sheet.

'Give her something for the pain,' Jaime tells the guard, trying to keep his voice light.

A flask at the man's hip is removed and he tips some of the contents into Ada's mouth. The alcohol is bitter, burning her tongue. She almost chokes, but manages with a grimace to swallow. Having had nothing to eat for the past eighteen hours or so, the spirit goes straight to her stomach.

'Alright?'

She grits her teeth, looks at his brown open face and tries to be brave. 'Just do it.'

He takes her arm in both hands, gently at first. 'Hold still,' he warns.

Ada takes a few shallow breaths in and nods.

Jaime's fingers tighten painfully, but before she can say anything he's pushed sharply on her wrist and pulled below her elbow.

There's a scream of bone and flesh and Ada cries out, almost seeing black. Her body jerks instinctively away from the pain but Jaime is firm, his hands hold her arm and his voice is soothing in her ears.

'It's alright, all done now.'

She shakes, her arm burns. But he's got her in his arms and his warmth is relief enough to make her close her eyes and hold back tears.

The alcohol churns in her stomach and she swallows sickness.

'Alright!' the guard pulls them apart. 'That's enough now, Kingslayer. You've fixed her arm, now I'll have to tie you up again.'

Jaime fixes him with an angry glare. 'You can't tie her wrists, the bone might shift again.'

'That's not my problem I'm afraid.'

Jaime grips her hand tightly.

'Tell Robb Stark that mistreating his prisoners won't bring him victory any sooner.'

The guard scowls. 'You don't call the orders round here Lannister.' And he spits in Jaime's face.

Oh, Jaime knows.

He blinks and wipes a gob of spittle from his cheek with the back of a grimy hand. The move leaves a clean smear down his jaw.

'You fucker,' he says lightly, feeling mildly riled by the whole situation. By his inability to use this girl to his advantage. To get out.

'No Kingslayer.' The guard shoves Jaime in the chest with his boot so that he is thrown back against the wood post and cracks his head. 'You fucker.'

But in the end he binds her ankles and puts shackles on her wrists so that there is a narrow chain of steel between them, leaving her free to cradle her aching arm. Jaime is lashed to the post, a collar of iron about his neck, hands chained and his feet lashed so that his knees splay at an angle, long legs held awkwardly with his hips screaming their discomfort.

She's bound to him, the chains intertwined. It is a small blessing. He can half hold her, sat crudely between his knees with her head tucked beneath his chin.

There is no food that day.

Jaime finds the closeness of her arouses him a little. Mind you, the sight of any attractive woman in a pretty dress would have made him painfully hard. Luckily she seems not to notice, too busy shivering against him, slipping in and out of an addled sleep.

There is nothing to ease the ache in his groin, nothing, save the fleeting press of her back against him. And that's not enough to bring him release of any sort.

In the night, the ache dies, but he wakes stressfully unfulfilled, leaving his temper short and his mind shaky. So he thinks of Cersei, and finds himself soothed.


	4. Northern Hospitality

I fear I'm spoiling you with such regular updates! Be warned, they will probably subside to twice a week or so, but I am very, very excited about where this story is going. So please stay tuned.  
Much love to my reviewers, you make me so happy. Enjoy this next part.

**.**

**Chapter Three**

**Northern Hospitality**

•

After four days, conversation starts to flow again, mostly on the discomforts of captivity. An experience they both share. Something they can both gripe about.

She's cramping in front of him, in his arms. He presses a little closer.

'Are you alright?'

She doesn't answer at first, crushes the heels of her palms into her stomach, clutches at herself painfully. He knows what it is.

Hunger pangs. True, gripping pain.

'It gets better,' he tells her gently. 'Your body grows used to the hunger.'

Ada takes his hands and draws them about her awkwardly - the shackles on both their wrists clanking - makes him hold her.

'I stink,' she growls, voice a little hoarse. She breathes into her palm and her nose wrinkles. 'Everywhere...'

'We both stink,' he comments lightly. 'I can barely tell what's you and what's me.'

They're silent for a moment. Jaime picks at his worn shirt sleeve and then turns his gaze to his legs with a critical eye.

'There's another hole in my britches, I think my clothes are finally rotting.'

Ada snorts. 'Welcome to the club.'

'Pardon?'

'The club… of people with rotting clothes.'

Jaime looks bemused.

She shakes her head. 'Never mind.'

•

A week passes, apparently Robb Stark has better things to do than talk to girls with little inclination of telling him what he wishes to hear. Ada had asked jokingly if telling him she was actually a spy would mean there was some progress made, but Jaime had advised sternly against it and the absence of a jape at the end of his talk had told her he was serious.

Eventually she is taken away again to the King's tent.

'Robb Stark,' she says curtly, before he can speak. 'How kind of you to see me. I thought perhaps you had forgotten me out there.'

She is allowed to stand this time, and Robb sits in his chair, looking her over carefully. 'I see the Kingslayer has sharpened your tongue.'

'He has a quick wit, if that's what you mean. And there's little else for company.'

Robb shifts, leans on the arm of his throne. 'Has your story changed, girl? Do you still know no-one here?'

Ada has reckoned, since the first time she met him, that Robb Stark is actually her junior and the notion of him calling her 'girl' rattles her a little. But she swallows it, for fear of what repercussions a badly timed remark will bring.

'No. Still the same I'm afraid. I can't tell you how I got here, because I don't know myself. Sorry to disappoint you.'

'Oh,' Robb Stark laughs. 'You don't disappoint. I'm just curious.'

Ada grits her teeth.

'Where do you come from then?'

'You won't have heard of it.'

'Try me.'

'England, if you must know. There, I told you you would not know it.'

'Is it real, this place you speak of?'

'As real as here.'

'What are it's customs, it's laws? Because you seem oddly ignorant of ours.'

'Well, we certainly don't treat women with as much cruelty and disdain as you-'

'I am at War-'

'-And we don't bicker with each other over measly pieces of Land like this godforsaken field.'

Robb bristles. 'This war is bigger than what you can see here, girl. There are five Kings who fight for the Seven Kingdoms and only one can win.'

Ada glares and refuses to say more.

Ten minutes go by and she does not open her mouth. In the end Robb heaves a sigh, obviously tired of her stubbornness.

'Take her away, if she has nothing more to say I have no use for her.'

The men leave with Ada and Robb prepares himself for his mother's inevitable council.

'They are calling her the Kingslayer's whore. You have ruined her Robb.' Catelyn says, appearing from the shadows behind his chair.

'It's just the men talking.'

'Talk can be cruel, especially if she is innocent.'

'We do not yet know that.'

'Then she is the finest actress I have ever met.'

'Just because she claims to know nothing, does not mean she is of no part in this.'

'And if she is not?'

'Then she will be pardoned accordingly and I will see to it she is provided for on her journey to wherever she was going.'

'Not all hurts are soothed by gold, Robb.'

'You think I do not know that?'

•

Another week is lost. Then two.

Ada wakes to the sound of rattling and banging, her heart is thudding in her chest as she sits up and sees angry Northern faces on all sides. Soldiers hit the bars of the cage with the pommels of their blades, glaring angrily at her as though she has done them some grievous ill. Beside her, Jaime stirs and then starts up.

'Gods, not this again.' Comes his sleep worn voice in her ear.

Ada juts her chin out and makes up her mind to glare at the Northmen. One laughs and presses himself against the bars. 'Whore!' he shouts, gesturing crudely with a hand. 'Kingslayer's whore!'

'Ignore them,' Jaime tells her, and she nods stiffly.

'I should tell you,' he says, quietly, as the noise intensifies. 'That the people of the North are usually welcoming folk, a little too dour for my liking. But on the whole, good to visitors.'

'So much for Northern Hospitality then,' Ada mutters, as more men shout out and beat against the bars.

'They're bored, and frightened of dying in battle - think of this as just friendly mocking.'

'Banter… Great.'

'Come on whore! Show us your tits.'

'I would prefer to see yours first, boy.' Jaime says loudly.

The men still, not willing to laugh at Jaime's jape. Then one decides how clever it would be to piss on the captives.

Ada closes her eyes, and wishes for it to stop. The stink of urine and shit is strong enough in the cage without more added, and despite the fact she has grown used to the smell, she feels nausea rising.

The hubbub dies a little with the arrival of their usual guard, whom Jaime has nicknamed Dim Jon, on account of his not being particularly bright.

'What's going on here?' he asks, two bowls in his hands bearing a rare breakfast. Ada's stomach growls.

'Just baiting the prisoners.' One of the cockier lads explains. 'Good for morale. You should know that.'

'Yeah, well not on my watch you don't. You know the King wants them kept careful-like.'

The lad, who is a sight bigger and taller than Dim Jon spits at his feet and looks up slowly. 'That's fucking Jaime Lannister and his little whore. What respect do they deserve, eh?'

'Move aside.'

Dim Jon gets the door open to the cage before he's stopped again. 'That looks a damn sight too good for any Lannisters to be eating don't you think?' One of the men has come into the cage with them, followed closely by a companion. The men around watch, waiting for a show.

Dim Jon fights for their breakfast, but not very hard. After all, they are prisoners.

'Here, piss in this.'

Jaime and Ada watch, wary, as their breakfasts are removed from sight and then returned, spoiled beyond any repair.

'You know, I was looking forward to something to eat.' Jaime tells them casually, eying the bowls in the hands of their new taunter. 'But now I find my appetite has quite deserted me.'

'You'll eat what you're given, Kingslayer.'

'I'm so bored of that name - it's getting a little old, don't you agree? Can't you think up another?'

'I can think of a few. Eat!'

'I'd rather not.'

The bigger of the two kicks Jaime in the stomach and all the air is forced from him in a pained gasp. But he looks up grinning. 'It must be difficult to throw insults at a woman and a kick a chained man,' his voice mocks sincerity and he pays for it with another kick.

'I told you to eat, Kingslayer!' And the gruel is pushed towards him, dribbled against his upturned face which has been flung back from the force of the second kick. Jaime spits and gags.

'Leave him!' Ada finds fury has bubbled in her chest, so powerful and consuming she can't keep quiet a moment longer. 'Leave him alone!'

The men turn from Jaime, set the bowls aside. One kneels in front of her, face deadly still, eyes dark. 'What was that?' he whispers, voice dangerous. 'Say something did we?'

'I said, leave him alone.' She fights to keep her voice steady.

'Well!' The man looks to his audience, who are watching intently. 'Will you look at that, the Kingslayer defended by a woman, his honour really has reached a new low!' They jeer and catcall and rattle the bars more.

'Do you have nothing better to do than to abuse those who cannot retaliate?'

'Apparently not.'

'Ada…' Jaime's voice is warning.

'Got quite the tongue on her, hasn't she?'

He fixes his gaze on her again, intently. She glares back, for the moment unafraid.

'I'd bet the Crag men would rip you apart girl. Bet good money on it too…' His audience clamours. 'Who wants to see how Jaime Lannister's whore would fare with the Crag Men?'

There's a welter of noise.

He leans into Ada. 'I think that's a yes. You! Come here.'

The keys are taken from Dim Jon. Beside her, Jaime's eyes are wide and fierce.

'Stop this, now!'

The Northman has Ada half unchained, his fingers like vices on her arms. 'What was that, Kingslayer?'

'It's alright!' Ada tells him, eyes wide and her heart pounding. 'Leave it, Jaime. It's alright.'

Her legs tremble from the lack of use and he has to half carry her out of the cage, the noise deafening. Men lean in from all angles, pinch her hard and laugh when she shies away.

'Not so brave now eh?'

Still in the cage, Jaime is yelling. _Stop, Jaime._ She thinks. _Stop before they hurt you. Please. Please, stop_.

•

Robb Stark is drawn first by the noise. With three loyal men about him, he approaches the cages where his prisoners are kept. There's a huddle of men, about thirty strong. Feeling anger and something akin to worry building in his throat, Robb pushes through.

A few men drop back, 'My Lord…' and move away.

'What is going on here!' Robb shouts over the tumult.

His three companions forge a way forward to the front, Robb following in the wake they create.

'In the name of the seven, before I strike one of you down!' Robb yells, furious. 'Will someone tell me what is going on!'

He can hear Jaime Lannister yelling, his men jeering, movement in the cage where the Crag men are still being kept and neither sight nor sound of Ada Howard. The scene unfolds as if it is being retold to him, and his stomach drops into some dark place in his belly he did not know existed.

'Get her out!' he commands, before shoving through himself, the three men at his back. _Gods, that I have condemned a woman to this…_

He enters the Crag men's cage, sword drawn. 'Move!'

Ada is just visible beneath the broad back of a man who leans over her, her britches are somewhere round her ankles, but Robb does not look to see if she has been… _If she has been-_ He smashes the pommel of his sword against the back of the Crag man's head and then sheathes his blade, trusting the men behind him to protect his back as he strips his cloak and drapes it over Ada. 'Put on your clothes.' He tells her curtly, not able to look her in the face.

She struggles in the mud for a moment but stands unaided, drawing his cloak about her shoulders and sending him a look so cold he can barely hold her gaze.

'Move aside!'

The cage is closed and the Northmen part about Robb; a silent, sullen wave.

'Gods that it should come to this…' Robb starts furiously. 'You may despise the Lannisters as much as I, but these people are my prisoners. She is not for your sport - she is someone's wife, or daughter or sister. You are men of the North, you are men of honour. This was badly done!'

The faces about him are downturned, either dark with anger or shame. Robb is not sure, and he cares little. Only that his control as King and Commander is somewhat salvaged.

He glares, long and hard at those he can see. Then turns to his guard, 'Get these men away from here. And move the Crag men. Do as I say!'

Movement. The men disperse. Ada huddles behind him. Dim Jon, looking shamefaced, shuffles forward.

'The keys to the cage, my Lord.'

Robb unlocks it himself, puts out a hand for her. She ignores it.

She's chained back in next to Jaime Lannister, whose face is shaded with anger. 'You should have better control of your men, boy. If they are like this after only a month's campaign, I hate to think what they will be like after a year.'

Robb's jaw clenches. He picks up a bowl sat on the floor by the edge of the cage and is about to offer it to Ada, when he sees what is inside.

'Gods,' is the muttered oath. He dashes the contents out onto the ground, nose wrinkled in disgust.

'Bring something to eat,' Robb tells Dim Jon, with a glance over his shoulder as the cage door is shut. 'For both of them.'

As both Robb Stark and Dim Jon retreat, one striding away with his men to his tent and the other to find some food, Jaime turns to Ada.

'Are you…' he cannot find the words he wants.

Her face is set, pale. But she is not crying. Her jaw tightens a little, he can see the fine muscles under the skin, perhaps she is holding back tears. Perhaps it is anger. 'I'm fine,' she mutters after a moment. 'They didn't… He didn't… There wasn't time.'

Jaime sends a silent vote of thanks to whatever Gods grace the heavens and make men's fortunes, before turning his attention back to her.

'Ada, I-'

'Just… Just hold me, will you? Please?'

She's shaking a little as he takes her in his arms. It's difficult. His chains press painfully into his ribs with her body crushed against him, and the cloak Robb Stark had given her bunches awkwardly between them.

'You were foolish,' he finds himself telling her, arms rocking her a little the way he had rocked Cersei when her firstborn had died. 'You should not have spoken for me. I can deal with these men well enough myself.'

'Bastards,' she mutters quietly. 'They would have left me, wouldn't they? If Robb Stark hadn't come, I would still be…'

Jaime hushes her, and drives from his mind the thought of would have happened if Robb Stark didn't have such impeccable timing.


	5. No Dinner

Dearest readers, here is the next instalment. Hugs to all my reviewers, and please take the time to drop me a few lines. Happy Reading! LB

**.**

**Chapter Four**

**No Dinner**

_'Bastards,' she mutters quietly. 'They would have left me, wouldn't they? If Robb Stark hadn't come, I would still be…'_

Jaime hushes her, and drives from his mind the thought of would have happened if Robb Stark didn't have such impeccable timing.

•

'Jaime-'

Silence.

'Jaime.'

'What?'

'I'm hungry.'

Her stomach growls its agreement and he laughs, chest moving against her back.

'Yes,' he agrees.

She closes her eyes and tries to ignore the rain that patters down onto them from the heavens.

'Even the gods are pissing on us,' she tells him grumpily, crossing her arms with her hands under her armpits for warmth. The chains rattle.

Jaime chuckles again and sits up a little more so that his torso is curved more over her, his body shielding hers from the water.

She's smaller than she had been when he met her first, her shoulders are sharper, her knees sit at more crooked angles and her face has lost some of it's softness, her cheekbones jutting a little more. The flush has disappeared, the only colour is a chill blush across her nose and a blueness in her lips.

'Why do you do that?' he asks after a moment.

'What?'

'-Put on a Westeros voice.'

'I have a Westeros voice?'

'When you're talking to Robb Stark, you affect his manner of speaking.'

'I can't say that I'd noticed,' she tells him, jutting her chin.

'There!'

'Well would I say instead! oh mighty all-perceptive one?'

'Something more like that,' Jaime chuckles.

Ada elbows him and scowls.

'You're in a mood.'

'Yes, and it's not a good one,' she growls. 'I'm fucking pissed off with this post and the mud. I'm sick of Robb fucking Stark. I'm sick of this weather! And I'm sick of being cold all the time.'

Jaime is silent after her outburst.

Then- 'Ada?'

She sniffs, too angry and cold and tired to answer.

'Ada, I'm going to get us out of here.' He hugs her closer. 'I promise you.' It's half ardent, half desperate. She can hear how he wants to believe it. Hear how his hope has been bundled up with hers.

'I believe you.' She says.

But in her mind she plans an escape, in just the same way she has done every day for the past week. If there is a huge, unseen world out there and she is truly stuck in it with little chance of getting back to England and home and Phil, then she's determined she won't die in this cage.

•

That night they don't get dinner, instead they get Robb Stark and Theon Greyjoy and ten guards.

'You two are looking cosy,' Theon says as he approaches them, face as snide and nasty as she'd remembered. 'I can't imagine the Kingslayer'd be one to pass up the opportunity of a fuck, despite all his pretty vows.'

Ada flushes, but doesn't look away. Jaime is silent. Defiant.

'Untie them,' Robb orders, ignoring Theon 'And get some ropes on him,' he nods at Jaime. 'Keep her in shackles.'

They hoist her up first, then Jaime - the chain rattles as it slips through the loop of his collar, but the collar stays on like a brand.

'Where are you taking me?' she asks, eyes fixed on Jaime as the men start to move her away.

Robb gives no answer, his back already turned on the two prisoners.

'Jaime-' Ada starts, anxious. 'Jaime!'

'Shut up,' says the guard holding her, and wrenches her about.

She's forced away through the camp, tripping and stumbling over her own feet.

Ada barely notices the tent she's led into, before she's pushed down and set before the long skirts and mud crusted boots of a woman.

'Unchain her,' says the voice Robb Stark's mother to the guards. They falter for a moment, but perhaps Catelyn gives them a sharp, angry look - Ada cannot see - and keys are soon rattling against the metal lock.

Ada stays on her knees, but she can't help the little gasp of relief as the shackles on her wrists are undone and the raw flesh beneath stings from exposure to air once more.

'You may leave.'

Ada dips her head a little more and brings her hands together, rubbing at the backs of her wrists, playing her fingers over the scabs.

'Get up, child.'

She looks up, fearing a trap. A beating, or perhaps a knife in the ribs.

But the face of Catelyn Stark is smooth and stern and without malice.

'Thank you,' Ada says, getting to her feet and standing face to face with the older woman.

'I wanted to talk to you,' Catelyn explains, seating herself on a long bench and looking expectantly at Ada.

Ada joins her, but her thoughts are with Jaime. What are they doing to him? Have they killed him? Will she be alone now in this world?

'You look thinner than when we met last.'

Ada bites back something nasty and decides that she will be civil to Catelyn Stark. 'Your guards do not always remember meal times my lady, I wonder how they feed themselves.'

Maybe Jaime had been right, that doesn't sound like her…

Her fingers move nervously.

'I think my son was wrong to put you out there.' Catelyn confides softly. 'You don't seem much of a threat to me.'

Ada swallows, shifts her feet in her mud covered sneakers, tries to look pitiable.

'Have you been hurt? Has Jaime Lannister harmed you?'

She chooses to chew her lip, hide her face - let Catelyn Stark make of it what she will.

'Child?'

'He is cruel,' Ada finds herself saying. 'Lewd. He takes advantage of me. I am grateful you called me away.' She bites back a faked sob and buries her face in her filthy hands.

Catelyn has the sudden urge to comfort the girl.

She puts a hesitant hand on Ada's arm. 'I think you've got caught in something you don't fully understand.'

'I know nothing of this world,' Ada says, voice muffled by her hands. 'I'm from a land far, far away from here, and I mean no harm to any of you. I know no-one, and nothing of this power struggle... please let me go.'

True, angry tears have started to leak through her fingers and she wipes them away clumsily, her fingers streaking dirt across her smudged cheeks.

Catelyn Stark might be as fierce as a direwolf, but her heart hurts for this young woman.

'I can't let you go, Ada. My son would never allow it-' she pauses. 'But I can let you wash and give you some clean clothes. Perhaps a bed for the night.'

Ada is so grateful for the warmth in her voice, and the thought of all the things she has been craving for the past few weeks that she throws herself at Catelyn. Her arms cling round the woman's waist and she buries her face in her sleeve. It's part act, part honest gratitude.

Catelyn strokes the girls dark hair and thinks of her daughters. Sansa and Arya. Their fates unknown. Her eyes brim.

'Lets get you a bath filled,' she tells the top of Ada's head.

•

'Three victories don't make you a conquerer,' Jaime says softly, looking up at Robb with bright, challenging eyes.

'It's better than three defeats.'

Jaime's head dips, he shakes it wearily. 'You're not a King yet, Robb Stark.' A smile is still playing about his mouth when Theon kicks him in the ribs.

He crumples into himself for a second, winded. Then turns his face up defiantly, breathing ragged. 'You may not like what I have to say, boy, but you cannot ignore my experience. All my years of warfare, Stark and I can tell you that your men will not follow you willingly into defeat.'

Robb swallows what looks like an angry curse, but he turns from Jaime, arms tightly folded.

It shows his youth, but Jaime feels an odd burst of recognition for the boy's attitude. It reminds him of himself as a young man. Sure of everything, unwilling to be crushed by odds painfully against him. Defiant to the end. Perhaps not so unlike him now.

'You want to defeat the Baratheons? The Lannisters?' he asks, staring at his boots. 'Let me give you some advice, stop playing at war. Make a stand you think you can't defend. Make a stand that looks nigh-on impossible and they'll be so scared shitless thinking you know something they don't, that you're likely to have them running before you even give the order to charge.'

'Who is Ada?' Robb asks violently, coming right up into Jaime's face, spittle flecking his cheeks. 'Who is she?'

'Ada?' Jaime's brows quirk. He shrugs. 'She's Ada.'

'You're in a bad position to be making light of every fucking thing, Lannister.' Robb grabs the back of Jaime's head, fingers dug into his hair and yanks it back.

They're so close they could kiss.

'A spy is she?' Robb presses, Jaime's head being pulled further and further back. 'A spy for you father? Or is she just nobody, as she claims?'

'Does she confuse you, Stark?' Jaime asks, leaning on his words in that lazy way of his. 'She confuses me. But I suspect even if I did know her purpose, I wouldn't tell you.'

The Stark boy sighs heavily, angrily and Jaime becomes aware of a low growl from behind him. Feral, threatening.

He tries to turn his head, but the shackles hold him tight and the noise is moving round to his other side. His ears strain for the sound of paws on the damp ground and the huff of breathing. It's huge, whatever it is and he catches a glimpse of it as it skirts the men and comes to stand by Robb, breath steaming.

A direwolf, grown huge since he saw it last.

He says nothing, eyes caught on it's long muzzle and huge amber eyes. It could rip out his throat in an instant, or take a hand with a single crunch of bone and teeth. He swallows, his eyes dark and glittering in the flare of the flames.

He knows his fate when he sees it.

'Your dog seems to have outgrown you,' he manages, voice much less confident than before.

Robb says nothing, puts a warning hand on the wolf's back.

Jaime takes down his fear heavily in his throat, adams apple bobbing. The animals eyes seem fixed on his pulse, that heavy beating artery in his neck. That would throb bright blood until his life is spilled out over his chest and the ground in hot, heavy spurts.

I do not fear death. He tells himself, over and over and over.

'Your usefulness decreases everyday, Kingslayer.' Robb tells him coldly and turns on his heel, letting the wolf surge forwards, growling and bristling.

Within an inch of him, it snaps at him and Jaime turns his face away, heart thundering.

He closes his eyes. _Cersei!_ he thinks desperately. He pulls away inside himself, breathing heavy. The animals hot breath washes over his face, bloody and cloying. And then nothing. Silence.

Jaime risks a glance with one eye cracked open and finds himself alone.

Utterly, alone.

•

The water is steaming, having been ferried from the fires outside and into the metal lined tub by two of Catelyn's handmaidens. Ada shakes her head when Catelyn offers to have them bathe her. The thought of the two girls washing her makes her feel uncomfortable, and after weeks of being tied to Jaime Lannister, as companionable as it had been, she is left craving her own company. Added to which, she's so filthy it's actually embarrassing.

She slips out of her things, the clothes slinking into a mud crusted pile at her feet. She asses her body critically. She's lost weight, she notices, her flesh clings tighter to her bones. Her legs are sticky and her feet grimy with mud. She grimaces at the hair on her shins and the sweat stink from her underarms. But at least she's not got lice, she thinks, scratching her scalp. The rain had washed their heads relatively clean.

With a little shiver of longing, she slips into the bath.

The water steams about her, soaking her weather hardened skin and stinging the cuts and sunburn as she sinks down.

Dipping her head below the water, she lets a stream of bubbles rise from her lips and then surfaces again, dripping and shivering with delight.

For a moment, she just sits there. Eases the memories of cold and damp and hot unwelcome hands against her skin, lets them drift away into the water. Then she grabs the little hunk of soap from the side and sets about scrubbing at her back and neck, feeling a lightness as the filth runs from her in rivulets. She cleans her face, splashing the water across her nose and mouth and behind her ears. There's a sharp razor blade also, so she tries her underarms, sluicing water over them and praying she doesn't nick herself with the edge.

Soon the bath is sinking in clouds of dirt, like the bottom of a river bed kicked up by children at play.

There'd been a jug set to the side for her to rinse herself down, so she stands and pours from the top of her head with her good left arm. The water flows through her scalp, right down to her calves to join the bath.

Cleaner, and happier than she's been in a long while, Ada slips from the bath and wraps herself in the linen cloth. There are furs on the floor, which serve to dry her feet and there's a dress laid out for her. Her heart sinks a little.

She salvages her underwear, rinsing the briefs and bra in the bath water to clean them and slipping them on under the towel, hoping they'll dry.

'Lady Stark!' she calls, praying that the woman has not left her to the mercy of her maids.

'Yes?'

Her russet head appears round the flap and Ada gives her a little smile.

'I don't mean to seem ungrateful, but I was wondering if you had any breeches and a shirt that I could have, rather than a dress. I fear it is too fine for me, and if I am put back with the Kingslayer, I don't want to make it too easy for him.' _Fear it is too fine?_ She thinks, snorting at herself internally. _That is weird, you've been absorbing too much Shakespeare and Austen…_

If Catelyn Stark is shocked at what Ada is referring to, she makes no comment. 'I'll see what I can do,' she tells her, and disappears back round into the body of the tent.

'Thank you-' Ada whispers and swipes the razor blade from the table, shoving it down into her bra, concealed by the towel.

•

She's given a bunk, a little straw thing with a rough cloth over it to keep the stuffing in place. But to Ada, it feels like a kingsize bed with soft feather pillows and cotton sheets. The only thing it's lacking is an electric blanket, she thinks wistfully.

But however comfortable and tempting the bed is, she cannot sleep tonight. She lies awake, staring through the gap in the canvas at the night sky.

There's a guard set outside, but she'd looked as she'd been led to the tent; it's back faces right onto the forest on the far side of the field from where she had been found. Very unlikely there would be anyone wandering about there late at night.

She gives it an hour. Then an hour slips into two. The shirt is thin, the blanket rough, but she lies still and quiet.

An owl hoots in the woods. A man's laughter carries.

Ada pushes the blankets off, down to her feet, bare and pale. She lies there in the cool dark, listening for the sound of the guard.

The sound of creaking leather as he shifts his feet. She breathes out heavily.

Some quiet determination drives her up in a close second, she sits there feeling clean and smooth in a new shirt and breeches.

It's an easy move to press her feet into the boots stuffed with sheep wool that Catelyn had given her.

She stands, shivering in the black and feels her way to the back of the tent, her fingers catching on the canvas.

There's a gap between the damp ground and the bottom of the canvas. Small enough for the weather to be kept out, but enough for her to fit under.

Ada crawls beneath the line of the tent, belly pressed to the ground, elbows dug into the grass and her boots kicking her through.

It's lighter outside, with the warm glow from the braziers and dying fires. She stays low, on her knees, round the back of the tent and toward the next, up onto the balls of her feet and crouching as she reaches the shelter of a third tent.

She peers around in the gloom for something to handrail. All those pointless Duke of Edinburgh training sessions flood back to her and she feels a sudden pang for home, for school friends. For normality.

There's a rustle in the trees and she stiffens, heart thudding painfully. But it's just a fox, whose eyes fix to hers with startling intensity before he slinks away, back into the undergrowth.

I'm like that fox, she tells herself. I can do this, slip like shadow in night. Get myself away from here. Get us away from here.

Pushing on, she finds herself reaching a part where the trees have fallen back and the tents crowd closer. She glances up and is caught by the pattern round the rim of the tent. Like little men with strangely twisted arms from afar - up close they're wolves, with gleaming eyes. It's something she'd been transfixed with for hours.

She peers back across the dark grass toward the trees.

There, hidden by the pattern of upright trunks and tangling leaves. The post and cage.

The post and Jaime.

He's been set back, tied again.

From here he looks to be asleep.

But the guard is there, with his back to her, staring into the shadows of the forest.

Not Dim Jon. The young one, who smiles little and talks less. Since the Crag men had been moved there has just been one guard for them. It will serve her well tonight.

She approaches slowly. There'd been no sound from the tents nearby but she needs to be careful.

She's never killed anyone before. Why should she have? No-one she knows from home has killed anyone. No one.

What is it, to take a life?

She wishes she'd asked Jaime before, during one of their long talks. She could have prepared herself.

But it's now or never.

She understands what to do. She's seen it in films. As her feet take her forward, she wonders if it will be harder than it looks. Perhaps the skin of a man's throat is tougher than they say, perhaps he struggles more. Is death longer in coming? A tall man like him could overpower her easily. Maybe she will be dead by the end of this. Frightened, she stills her thoughts, forcing a moment of echoing silence, so still she can hear the whisper of the leaves in the forest over her own breath, the man breathing before her in the darkness.

She will not falter. She can do this.

Him, or her.

Now the choice seems simpler; now that she's put a price on her life. He'll die, or she will.

As it turns out, killing is easier than she had thought.

Once she's behind him in a rush, it's simple to bring her left hand up and drag it to his mouth. Her fingers press back his lips and graze his teeth, but before he can make a startled noise she's brought the razor blade hard across his throat.

Hot, warm blood bursts against her hand.

There's a sound as it spills, a rush. She can smell the iron.

It feels right somehow, to ease his crumple down onto the earth. He's tall, so it's awkward and she has to keep from falling with him. In the process her left hand comes from his mouth and her right is clutched against the flat of his chest with the blade still in her fingers. But he's not screamed, she realises. He's been brave.

As he dies silently, drowning in his own blood, she presses a hand to his brow. Strokes back greasy hair.

'Shh,' she whispers, half startled at her own voice. 'Hush, it's alright. It's alright.'

He's just a boy.

He's just a boy.

Dead now.

She stands, the razor dropping from her hands, fingernails stuck with red, hands shining.

She forces herself to bend and wrest the keys from his belt.

For a moment by the lock she fumbles with them, trembling. But the keys make too much noise to shake for long and she forces her hand into action. Slow and steady.

Gate now open, she crosses the last few meters to Jaime. Crouches down by his side.

How to wake him without making a sound…

She sets one hand on his shoulder and the other across his mouth. Feels his breath just like she had the boy she's killed. Her fingers look so pale against his face, which is still dark with trails of blood and mud. He smells far, far worse than she remembers, perhaps it is because she is clean now and he is not. But he is still Jaime, so she keeps hold and shakes him gently.

There's a second of stillness and then he's grabbed her, his bound hands latching about her throat and his face pressed up and close against hers.

She tries not to choke, her hands push him back, one against his chest the other against his arm.

She can't breathe.

She can't- Jaime releases her in a gasp of muttered apologies and sharp movement. He hunches back against the post, breathing shallowly.

'I could have killed you,' he hisses, looking angry and regretful all at once.

'But you didn't,' she whispers. 'That's what counts.'

There's fresh blood on his brow, and he sits awkwardly against the wood, his face downturned.

She touches his arm gently.

'I've come to free you, we're going to get out of here.'

His eyes, wide and flecked with amber light find hers. 'Addy…'

'Listen to me, we've not got long. I slipped past the guard on the door, but he checks up on me and the alarm will be raised.' She cups his cheek and smiles bravely. 'Please let's leave this place, I want to leave and I can't do it without you.'

Jaime breathes out heavily, looks down and then back up at her. 'Untie me then.'

She sets about it quickly, tugging at the thick rope knots with practiced hands. Soon his hands are free, but there's still the ties on his ankles. He tries to help her, but she bats his hands away and sets about tearing at them viciously.

He watches her, half impressed half anxious that her freeing him will take too long and prove fatal for the both of them.

'There-' she whispers taking the leather cord and wrapping it about her left hand. 'Could come in useful.'

The chain is unlocked, after a few frantic seconds of searching for the right key. The collar she can do nothing about.

Jaime just grimaces and eases out his aching shoulders.

'You've been hurt...' she says, and touches the back of his hand.

He just grasps her fingers and pulls them up. 'Nothing I can't deal with.'

Standing, he towers over her. She knew he was tall, from the length of his legs and the height of his body sitting. But now, at her meagre five foot four inches he is a good head and a half taller.

By the gate Jaime stops, looks down at the dead boy. Up at her.

'I didn't want to,' she whispers, coming in close to him. 'But, he was here and he had the keys…'

'Come,' he says, taking her hand more securely.

He doesn't want to tell her it's alright. Because your first kill is the hardest. She's not like any woman he's met before, but Jaime knows if he comforts her, she will break. And he needs someone hardened enough to tramp through the night if they're going to get away, not a sobbing girl. 'We'll make for the woods and try and cover as much ground as we can before daybreak.'

But she stalls a little. 'Can't we steal horses or something?'

Jaime shakes his head, pulls her toward the trees. 'Too noisy. We need to be quiet as mice. There will be sentries posted in the forest. Plus missing horses will alert them sooner to that fact we're gone. We can find some animals once we're a good few leagues from this place.'

Navigating the forest is easier than it had been the last time Ada was forced to do it, the leather boots Catelyn had given her are sturdy and well fitting and the sheep's wool keeps her warm. Yet the shirt is thin and now she can feel every gust of chill wind go right through her.

After a while, Jaime notices her shivering. He stops abruptly and she almost walks into him, her face turning up, frightened and pale. 'What is it?' she whispers, tucking herself to his back. 'Have you seen one of Robb's men?'

Jaime shakes his head, strips himself of his dark jacket.

'What-'

He takes her left arm and slips the sleeve of the jacket over it, drawing the muddy, blood stained leather with the crimson lining round her shoulders and looping her other arm through the right sleeve.

The jacket sits loosely about her frame, far too large. A little worse for wear. But his warmth is in it and it smells of him, the good smell, tainted only a little by the true stink of the cage. She gives him a grateful smile.

'Your teeth where rattling so loudly in your head I was afraid you'd give us away,' he tells her, putting an hand on her shoulder and moving them on again.

'Won't you get cold?' she asks hoarsely.

He shakes his head. But she knows he's lying.


	6. Oathbreaker

C'mon folks! I know you're out there, I can see you all lurking! If you enjoy the story, it takes a few seconds to tell me and those few seconds mean so much to your humble scribe here!

Thank you so much to anonymous (whoever you may be!), Last Angel In Hell and Lola for the reviews, happy reading everyone. LB

**.**

**Chapter Five**

**Oathbreaker**

_'I've come to free you, we're going to get out of here.'_

_His eyes, wide and flecked with amber light find hers. 'Addy…'_

_'Listen to me, we've not got long. I slipped past the guard on the door, but he checks up on me and the alarm will be raised.' She cups his cheek and smiles bravely. 'Please let's leave this place, I want to leave and I can't do it without you.'_

_Jaime breathes out heavily, looks down and then back up at her. 'Untie me then.'_

•

They make it to a farmstead that first night. There's a barn set aside from the main buildings. Jaime tells her that the harvest is long over, that they'll be safe there for a day until sundown.

Ada just nods, teeth chattering and follows him across the swathe of long grass to the barn doors.

Inside, the barn is full of hay, the floor dusty with it and the smell thick in the air.

Jaime skirts round toward the far end of the barn, so that if anyone were to glance in they would not be seen immediately.

He settles down in the hay with a groan, eyes closing in exhaustion and Ada thumps down beside him, strands of grass flying up about them.

She looks across at Jaime whose face is just visible in the semi dark.

'You look like shit,' she tells him, with a smile in her voice.

He manages a weak laugh. 'Thank you.' He glances at her, eyebrows raising. 'You've washed, and been given new clothes. Some of us weren't so lucky.'

She colours, but he can't see.

He only sees her turn her face down, worry etched into every line.

'Hey-' He touches her cheek. 'I'm alright.'

'Sure.'

He settles back a little more, scrubs at his brow. 'It looks worse than it is. Little Fox, don't fret.'

She is silent. Then- 'What did you call me?'

Jaime laughs, a rasping sound in his throat. Shakes his head and shrugs 'I saw a fox just before you came for me, grey as night and quick as shadows. Made me think of you.'

'Oh.' She says, thinking it was probably the same animal she had disturbed before she had found him.

He pushes a swathe of clean, soft curls back from her face and draws her to him. 'You sleep, I'll take the first watch.'

Dawn creeps quietly. Rosy light and a dew, fresh and chill - the smell of autumn already heavy on the air. The birds stir, fluttering wings and then song starting. Jaime stretches out his legs, pulls them in again and groans.

'Damn. Damn…'

He scrapes a hand through his hair and grimaces when he cannot draw it all the way through - the tangles and mud and blood catching his fingers.

His body, bruised and damaged as it is, tells him to get up and start walking and not stop till he's back in Kingslanding with Cersei. He forces in a breath and controls his desire.

His father is in Harrenhal, he had heard Robb Stark's men talking. So East is best, East to Tywin and then on to Cersei. He could start now, there is nothing to stop him. Find a horse and go full pelt to the river and then take his chances across the low ground between High Heart and Stone Hedge all the way to Harrenhal.

It's just light. If he's going to go, he must go quickly. He must go now.

Jaime stands, cracks his back and eases his neck and looks down at the sleeping girl. She's not stirred, her head is still tucked into the crook of her arm, the other drawn about her waist as though she's holding herself together. _Such a strange little thing-_ Best if he leaves now, she'll not thank him when she finds out who he really is. When she hears why Catelyn Stark hates him so, when she hears of Robert and Cersei and Joffrey. Best to go, _now_.

He sniffs and crosses back to the barn door without looking back, cracks it open and breathes in fresh, clean, free air.

Dawn has never looked so inviting, a golden haze over damp grass and stubbled fields. The wooden door shudders as he pushes it shut and steps out.

'Good morning, freedom,' Jaime breathes, looking about for some sign of the stables or other outhouse. But he's not been quick enough, already there's voices in the yard and the clop of hooves. The snort of a plough horse, heavy and clear in the quietness. He curses and slips round the side of the barn.

To the trees again, that is his best bet. Find a steed in some other farmstead.

He makes as far as a stream. In the early light the water rushes clear and sweet in a shallow bed and he cannot resist the urge to stop and splash his face, cup his hands and pour some over his head, shivering at the feel of it against his scalp. He's not a vain man, his beauty had been born and perhaps he takes it for granted, yet he makes no real effort with his appearances. But even Jaime has to admit he's been feeling perhaps a little too grimy for his liking these past few months.

The sound of raised voices and tramping feet alerts him almost instantly and his moment of peace is shattered.

'Fuck,' Jaime mutters, scrambling back up the bank and muddying his hands which had just been rinsed clean for the first time in a very long time.

Robb Stark's men perhaps. Or maybe it's just farm workers. Jaime doesn't stop to find out, because his thoughts had fled instantly to Ada.

_If she was caught… if she was found by anyone_. He might have shit for honour, but he feels in his chest the wrench of self loathing at the idea he could leave her so heartlessly. Silent, gone with the dawn leaving her alone in this world which she knows so little of.

He's back the way he came in a few short strides, staying low and quiet, ears listening for the sound of the men who had disturbed him.

The barn door creaks a little as Jaime returns, feeling now something he would not admit to- something a little too like shame. Jaime Lannister has never been ashamed of anything before in his life. Never. Not even when he had been pulled before his father, red faced and dripping following his dive from the cliffs at Casterly Rock. Not even when his mother had found him with his head between his sisters thighs and left the room, white faced and speechless. But something's there now, sat in the pit of his belly as he slips back into the dim light of the barn and Jaime finds it hard to lift the feeling.

Ada is still there, just as he left her. Perhaps sunk a little further in the hay having lost the support of his body against hers, but still sound asleep. He slumps down beside her, rubs a hand over his face and sighs. She had set him free when she could have run herself. To have left her… would have been cruel, and cruel is not a word Jaime likes to associate with himself. He is not cruel. Hotheaded, rash, proud. Arrogant, certainly.

Jaime sniffs and eases back.

•

When Ada wakes, the light is seeping grey through the slats of the barn and Jaime is asleep on her breast, his arm about her waist.

'Jaime you idiot,' she whispers, stroking back his hair and setting a hand on his back. 'You should have woken me up, we could have been found.'

But he has no reply. She sits up a little more and leans her head back, the weight of him heavy on her side.

The day outside looks overcast and rainy. Like every other day she's seen in this world, it is cold. Relentlessly so.

Jaime stirs, murmuring low in his throat, little sounds of worry, fear. Then he quietens again, perhaps lulled by the steady thud of her heart in her chest.

Ada keeps awake by counting the number of grazes on her hands. Twenty seven by her last count. She sighs and sets her hand on his back again, tucks her knees up and plays with the edge of her stolen boots.

'Cersei-'

She jumps a little, but it's just Jaime, mumbling against her, his fingers stroking at her waist. She tucks his hair back, his face clearer and simpler for her to see than ever before, even though the sky is hid from her by the roof of the barn. He looks cleaner than he had. Ada frowns. It's just the scabs and beard now, the trails of blood and smudges of mud are gone. He must have left her to wash his face…

A clump of hair flops back defiantly and she strokes the skin of his brow beneath it. There's another wound at his temple and a black eye is blossoming, the bruising and swelling tracing his right cheek. His beard has grown, unkempt and sprouts thick across his cheeks and over his upper lip. The hairs she finds, are oddly soft, despite their rough appearance and she can see how the hair on his head could have once shone, were it not filthy and matted with mud and blood.

Just as the sun is dipping beyond the horizon and the first glow of the day proves to be the last, Jaime wakes suddenly.

Ada is jolted from her reverie as he shudders upright, and then with a heavy outward breath sets his head back on her breast and tries to calm himself. Ada leans over him, strokes his hair and puts her free arm about his shoulders.

His grip tightens about her waist. 'It's been so long since I've been held,' he mumbles into her, his breath warm through her shirt.

'Pardon?' she whispers, curving her body round him and letting her breath brush his ear.

'I said, I've not been held for a long while.'

She hugs him a little closer. 'Well, it's the least I can do,' Ada tells him.

'Did anyone come?' he asks after a moment, sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes with a scabbed hand.

Ada is sorry for the loss of his weight and his arm about her.

'No.' She shakes her head. 'We've had no unwanted visitors.'

'Good.'

She sees his hand go to the collar at his throat, his grimace at the tightness of it. She can see the skin beneath rubbing raw like her wrists had done.

'We'll leave in a couple of hours.' He tells her, standing and stretching. 'They might have some horses we can take.'

'Good,' she says pulling out the plait she had drawn earlier and threading her fingers through her curls. 'I want to get as far away from Theon Greyjoy and Robb Stark as we can.'

Jaime watches her comb through her dark hair with a glazed look, as though hypnotised. He's crossed a boundary with this girl. He should not have let himself sleep, but the rhythm of her breathing had been so steady and she was soft and warm. Woman, against his side. He had felt his eyelids dropping, his arm closing about her waist.

'What?' her eyebrow is raised, a quirk to the side of her mouth, fingers threaded in her hair.

'Nothing, just looking at you.'

She flushes, and Jaime feels a little flare of triumph. She's nervous around him, even with his hair filthy and his beard scabbed across his cheeks. All those women who would have swooned over him in the past, with his golden hair and his armour gleaming, they would mistake him for a beggar in the street. But now, for this girl he still holds some power. The way a male lion, however scarred has the loyalty of his pride. He feels warmth kindle in his belly.

'Do you think me handsome, Addy?'

Her cheeks colour hotly. She scowls. 'Lannister, you know how you look.'

He laughs at her. 'Even with this beard and the collar? I'm flattered that you think anything of me at all.'

'I can see you beneath the grime Jaime,' she tells him, fingers still working through her hair.

'So, handsome then?'

'Perhaps you think a little too much of yourself for that.'

He grins at her, but she has finished her plait and tucks her knees up under her chin. 'Don't mock me. You are the only person who has shown me any true kindness in this world Jaime, please, don't let us fall out over your pride.'

His smile is a little rash, lopsided. He drops himself onto the hay beside her, leans across and plants a chaste, soft kiss on her cheek.

'Sorry old thing, forgive me my arrogance. It comes with being Lannister.'

She crosses her arms sharply across her chest and Jamie is reminded so strongly of a younger Cersei that he feels a pang of longing in his heart.

'When can we leave?' She asks after a little while, picking at a loose thread on the dark sleeve of his jacket. She's rolled the leather sleeves up and her forearms look strangely delicate, bruised and brown.

He glances up through the slats of the barn.

'It's getting dark, we can risk the stables and be on our way.'

He pulls her up. 'Lady,' he dips a little bow and she manages a weak grin.

'Alright then, Ser, lets get moving.'

She hides in the shadow of the long building as he steals their mounts.

Her heart thrums heavy in her chest. She's afraid. Afraid for him.

He comes back to her quickly, two horses clopping quietly behind him, their breath steaming in the night air.

She looks at the beasts worriedly, thinking how tall they look, even compared to her tall knight.

'I've never-' she begins as Jaime hands her the reigns of the grey. 'That is, I've not ridden a horse before. I rode ponies when I was little.' She glances worriedly at the horse, who is nosing her dark sleeve. 'Can't we just take one?'

He looks at her, standing apprehensively at the horses head, her eyes dark and smudged.

'You can't ride?'

She shakes her head.

Jaime swings himself up onto the black easily, long legs slung with feet in the stirrups.

'You can ride with me,' he tells her. 'We'll lead the other horse. Incase one goes lame - we'll be grateful for them both.'

She looks quietly thankful.

Jaime reaches for her. 'Up you get.'

One foot over his, her knee brushes his belly on the way over, but she's set in front of him and Jaime finds her closeness temptingly uncomfortable.

With the grey on a long rope they make their way out into the night.

She can't settle back, his hips seem to roll with every dip of the horse, his chest tight to her back and his strong arms about her waist.

Ada's face heats, and she tries to ignore his body behind her.

'Are you alright?'

His voice startles her and she jumps a little in his arms, colouring furiously.

'Fine,' she mutters.

'We've made good progress,' he tells her, breath warm against her ear.

But Ada is not truly paying attention, instead she is distracted by the insistent warmth of his crotch against her lower back, his belly pressed to her spine.

'Ada?'

'Mhmm?'

'You can sleep if you like.'

She thinks that it's unlikely she'll ever sleep again after having him pressed so intimately against her, but she nods and leans back.

The rocking is easier now that they seem to be moving as one. Her head starts to drop against his shoulder, her breath deepening and soon Jaime finds she is asleep in his grasp.

He is grateful, her stiffness in the saddle had been making him horribly aware of the way he rode into her, the movement of the horse pushing him forward. Now that she sleeps, she seems to mould into him a little more. Jaime finds it eases the tightness in his braes.

Jaime tells himself thinking about Ada as something more than companion, something closer to lover, is betraying his oath to the Kingsguard.  
But he snorts aloud. Fucking his sister in a dark closet, closing his mouth about her breast as she lay in Robert's bedchamber, taking her from behind up in Ned Stark's tower. All those had been a betrayal of his oath.

Somehow he feels he taints Ada by thinking of her. His mind turns instead to Cersei. Picturing her golden head dipping to his waist is easy, the mischief in her green eyes as she teases him, fingers gripped tight at his hips. Holding him down.

The night is dark and long, and they make it to a deep pine forest before sunrise.

Jaime drives the horse up into the trees on the hill and onto the ridge, before retreating a little down the side. They will be in the lee of the hill there, protected from the chill wind and the horses can graze on the rough ferns that scatter the floor.

He slips from the horse first and lifts a sleeping Ada from the saddle. She murmurs a little, but quietens when he pulls the jacket about her more and sets her at the base of one of the pines. He tethers the horses and then settles beside her.

In her sleep she finds his shoulder, nuzzles into his shirt like a cub and makes a low, contented noise in her throat. He stares at her for a moment, head cocked to one side. So unlike his sister. Her eyes are soft and blue-green, like the sea or the pines, not sharp, steely emerald. Her face is small, heart shaped, a jaw that cracks easily into laughter and a mouth that shows all her teeth when she smiles. Which is often.

Her hair, not spun gold, but dark soft curls, with red in them. Red that gleams like hot embers in the night.

Jaime allows himself to lean back, close his arm about her and shut his eyes. He can hear her breath, heavy in her lungs, in her nose. The huffs of her chest expanding and contracting, steadily. His heart seems to meet that rhythm, thumping steady and slow. His mind wanders, the way it does before sleep. He finds himself thinking of what they will do when they are far enough away from Robb Stark. Return to his father perhaps, return to the chastising - the dry, vicious drawl of a man who is disappointed with his first born. The way he is disappointed with his other son. His dwarf. Jaime feels a shiver of righteous rage for Tyrion. Only Cersei truly has his father's affections, and even then…

He dozes. His mind walks restlessly.

He could return to his post at Kingslanding. A jumped up bodyguard for his jumped up son. Joffrey. He cringes a little. Everything bad from her and from him. Her vanity, his arrogance, pride, insolence. Stubbornness. Her cruelty. Not a kind bone in that boys body.

No, perhaps not there then. Not quite yet. Even if his mind and body do ache for Cersei. Perhaps, this once, he could summon her to him. She could make the journey down back alleys and through dark corridors to find him, if she loves him so. If she craves him as much as she claims.

Jaime lies there feeling wickedly used.

Ada stirs. A branch creaks and the horses shift, dreaming of fields and grass and sweet nothing.

Jaime's mind is soft again. He finds himself in the glow of a late summer sunset. He's nowhere he knows, but he feels content and a pleasant warmth has flooded his body. Barley fields bow, heavy with their fruits and the breeze is soft, bringing sweet scents and honey on the air. He's sat in the grass, fingers dug into it's thick shoots and feeling the earth grit beneath his nails. Someone calls him, but he just smiles to himself and lies back, staring up at the sky.

The body that settles against his side is familiar, the hand that rests against his hip well learned - he knows the flatness of the nails and the length of the fingers. And when he turns his face into the warmth of their hair, there's darkness


	7. East, then East Some More

Totally blown over by my wonderful reviewers from last chapter - you guys are the best! Especially Last Angel in Hell and Uhlowl22 who wrote essays and deserve a piece of Jaime each (if he was mine to give…) Enjoy this update and tell me what you think!  
The action will be picking up next update, never fear. LB

**.**

**Chapter Six**

**East, then East Some More**

_The body that settles against his side is familiar, the hand that rests against his hip well learned - he knows the flatness of the nails and the length of the fingers. And when he turns his face into the warmth of their hair, there's darkness._

•

Jaime wakes next evening to the sound of Ada humming. He struggles upright, props himself up on his elbows and stares.

She's taken off his jacket, he can see it slung over a low bough next to where the horses are tethered. She's in nothing but her shirt, which trails down to mid thigh. Her legs are brown and narrow, and in the sunlight lancing through the trees, her silhouette is lit in the soft linen.

Not wanting to frighten her, Jaime leans back and watches through half lidded eyes. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows and she's beating mud from the breeches she'd been given, dust flying up in the early evening light and smoking the air. Her feet are bare.

She looks like she was born in this place. Jaime thinks suddenly. Born of pine and green leaves and good earth. Her brown skin and dark, thick hair.

Jaime can't help but be caught by the tempting lift of the shirt as she finishes cleaning the braes and bends to slip them on. _Why_? His mind is not quite sure, but his heart tells him that it's the tempting allusion to another kind of relationship. One where he does not have to skulk or hide. One where he could be himself, just himself and turn his back on the world of court intrigue and lies and murders. To challenge and be challenged without malice or spite. He thinks how much prettier she looks not covered in mud and shit, and the lack of clothing perhaps helps. But he feels a stab of guilt - Cersei has marked him as her own - even if Ada doesn't know it yet, it's likely the whole of Westeros does. He's the man who fucks his twin, depraved, lecherous bastard that he is. He's stained with Cersei, like an indelible mark and the closest he's going to get to another relationship is sneaking glances at a half dressed woman. Jaime feels mildly disgusted at himself.

But then she's safely in her breeches again and her brown thighs have been hidden from view.

Jaime thinks it's safe to announce his wakening and does so with a stretch and a groan.

'Evening,' she chirps.

He stands and cracks as he stretches, forcing his previous dark thoughts from his mind. 'You're cheerful.'

'Just pleased to be here.'

She crosses to the horses and strokes down the grey's nose. 'How are we going to feed ourselves Jaime?'

Jaime looks at her. 'You're hungry?'

'We've been spoilt by our captors - regular meals brought to us. We're going to have to fend for ourselves.'

Birds flit from tree to tree in the late evening light and Jaime joins Ada by the horses. 'I think I might be able to manage something,' he tells her, head cocking to one side. He scrubs the grey's forehead and lets his fingers brush against hers as he draws back. 'Stay here, I won't be long.'

•

'How are we going to eat that?'

Jaime looks up at her over the carcasses of two rabbits. His eyes are very green in the fading light and the smile he gives her is sharp and shows all his startlingly perfect teeth.

Ada raises an eyebrow and sits back on her haunches, arms curled about her knees. 'Alright then, smart-ass. Tell me.'

'Well, skin them first-'

Ada's face brightens and then falls in a single instant, Jaime watches her, amused. 'I forgot the knife that I took from Catelyn Stark… Stupid! I should have picked it up, I should have- Oh.' Jaime has reached to his belt and pulled out the knife.

He reaches out and taps it to her nose. 'It's a good thing, little fox, that you have me looking out for you.'

Ada picks up one of the rabbits, strokes her fingers over it's soft ears and then holds it out to Jaime. 'I've never skinned anything before in my life, you'll have to do it.'

Jaime sits back, legs loosely crossed, takes the rabbit in one hand and the knife in his right.

His hands are quick and skilled - this is something his father had taught him relentlessly as a child. How to prepare your meat, how to feed yourself. _What is a man who cannot feed himself? A fool, nothing more._ And Lannisters do not act like fools.

Ada watches him, impressed. His fingers work over the fragile flesh, not tearing, just tugging the fur carefully back, the knife helping to pull it away. Soon both animals are skinned, and Jaime glances up at her. 'Some wood now, a fire for our furry friends.'

The forest floor is scattered with countless twigs and the pine cones will make easy kindling. Jaime kicks a patch into the dirt with his boot, a round circle into the floor. The fire part is harder.

Jaime presents Ada with the razor and a stone and grins. 'Go on then.'

She sniffs, rolls up her sleeves and sets about chipping one against the other. Unlike in the stories, she finds, making fire is really rather hard. There are sparks, but not enough to take, and certainly not enough to flicker miraculously into flame.

Finally. Finally, the dry pine needles catch and then the cones. Jaime smiles across at her, and she feels a flutter of pride. They create a makeshift spit and soon the two rabbits are cooking over the flames. Darkness is creeping in. They don't have long.

'How do you eat at home then, if you don't know how to skin a rabbit?' Jaime asks, one hand absently turning the spit.

She shrugs. 'We get our meat from shops, all wrapped up and pre-cut. We don't slaughter our own food, we don't pick the vegetables or work the fields or skin the meat.'

'Who does then?'

'Farmers, butchers, the people in the food retail industry…' Ada pokes at the ground. 'Most people do their own cooking, but we don't work the land like we used to. People have different jobs, banking and the media and journalism… all the stuff we don't really need. Hardy anyone knows how to be self sufficient anymore.'

Jaime hasn't understood half the things she's said, but he finds he's content just to listen to her. He doesn't feel the need to dominate the conversation, to make her blush or provoke some reaction. To be flippant or tongue-in-cheek.

'May I?'

He's been drifting, but her hand covers his to take the crude turning spit and he nods. lets go.

They eat the meat off the bone, fingers slick with grease. Ada thinks how food has never tasted so good before, the taste of freedom. But they don't have long, and the fire is stamped out just as the light dims from the sky.

And they ride on.

•

They take to moving in the daylight hours, and Ada is grateful. Her sleep had been disturbed by birds and light and day in general. Though Jaime slept through it all, she would lie awake watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, then sleep in his arms on the horse that night. Travelling by daylight is faster too, the horses do not have to be guided as much, they tread lighter and seem calmer. No night noises plague them, no fear of things in the dark creeping.

They move east for what seems like an age, through the low foothills and forest covered land around Goldentooth. They make for each new sunrise, and sleep when the day dips behind them.

When they stop again, it's by a slow flowing river down in the valley. Ada makes a little surprised noise in her throat as Jaime slows the horse and slips down from behind her.

'Why are we stopping?' she asks, hands going to his shoulders as he helps her down.

'I need to bathe,' he explains simply and begins to strip himself of his shirt.

Underneath the soiled linen, Jaime is black and brown and blue. Mottled red bruises litter his lean torso and his skin is pressed with mud and blood and injury.

Ada winces a little to look at him.

'Aren't you going to turn round?' he asks, as his hands move to the waist of his braes, ready to push them down and throw himself into the stream.

She flushes and drops down cross legged with her back to him, thinking she saw the flicker of a wolfish smile on his face.

'Tell me when you're done.'

All she hears in reply is the splash as he makes the water.

There's a rough gasp as he surfaces, and for a while the only sounds are the chirp of the birds and the soft clop of the horses hooves as they snip at the soft shoots on the trees. And the river flowing past.

Ada picks at the blades of grass that have pushed up through the dry river pebbles, crushes them between her nails, the green stains her fingers.

'Blue, songs are like tattoos you know, I've been to sea before…' she sings quietly, poking at the ground. 'Crown and anchor me… hmmm-' She breaks off, chews her bottom lip, resists the urge to turn round.

Something makes her look. Longing. Curiosity.

She takes a quick glance over her shoulder, catches a flash of bare flank and brown, strong thigh, water dripping over a flat abdomen and a taught, pale ass.

Ada flushes hotly and looks back down at her boots, picks the fluff from the wool that has crept over the top. Anything. _Anything_ to distract her from adding detail to the glimpse of him she has seen.

There's a crunch as he makes the shore, pebbles underfoot, gasping and dripping.

He sniffs loudly and then there's the rub of linen on skin as he tries to dry himself.

The toes of her boots press into sand.

'I'm done,' he tells her.

But he's lied.

She stands up, turns. And he's there in his breeches and nothing else, rubbing his wet hair with his shirt and grinning, looking clean and fresh and radiant even with the collar and beard and long shaggy hair.

Ada stares and tries to make it look like she's not._ Not staring. No._

He crosses the short distance between them and drops a soft, careful kiss to her cheek. It's warm and tempting, even if his beard prickles her skin. He's got it just perfect.

'What was that for?' she demands, crossing her arms and shooting him a venomous look as he moves back to rinse out the shirt in the clear water, before slipping it on over his head. The wet material clings.

_Talk about Mr Darcy moments_, she thinks grumpily.

'It was thanks. For getting me out of that camp.' He tells her. 'I couldn't have done it without you. And I don't think you would have appreciated it before I washed.'

She shrugs and sniffs, kicks her feet in the sand. 'I wouldn't have got away without you.'

'I suppose we're even then,' he says with a smile in his voice. 'Come here.'

She looks up. He's stood by the grey, looking at her with expectant green eyes.

'It's alright, neither of us bite.'

Ada rolls her eyes. 'I know,' she says, approaching and stretching out her hand to the horse. He presses his soft nose into her palm and breathes heavily into it, hot damp breath smelling sweet and green.

'I think it's time you learned to ride, Addy,' Jaime says and before she can return with some clever remark, he's grabbed her waist and hoisted her up into the saddle.

Ada has to bite back his name on her tongue, angry words crowding her cheeks and painting her red. 'It's alright,' Jaime tells her, and he's got a hand close on her knee.

Ada grabs for the reigns and clings on. 'Easy!' Jaime's other hand has gone to the bridle of the horses mouth, eases the tension on the bit with his fingers. 'Don't pull too hard.'

She loosens her hold. 'Just relax,' he says, fingers on her knee rubbing over the joint like he's soothing an animal. She finds she doesn't really mind. 'It's like, an extension of yourself,' he tells her, pulling the reigns through her hands till they loop carefully between her fingers and the grey's mouth, the tiniest movement twitching through the leather, but not pulling uncomfortably. 'The horse is just you. You don't beat your legs when they hurt, you don't force your hands to move. You just, think it. He can feel you, you're on his back - don't force your intentions. Think them, let him do the work - he'll know what you want. Through the weight of your body, the tension. A twitch here,' he pulls the left reign a little, a jerk so gentle it barely strains the leather. But the grey angles himself to the left with a snort. 'A press there.'

His hand slips from her knee and presses her dangling foot into the horse's side carefully. She's not got her boots in the stirrups, but the motion he's caused is so gentle that she feels safe on the big animal's narrow back. A careful circle, Jaime follows. The grey's hooves crunch on the pebbles, and she tries a gentle dig with her heels. A trot, which almost makes her loose her balance till she shoves her feet into the leather stirrups. 'You can ride into it,' Jaime tells her, letting go of the reign and stopping. 'Or you can sit through the bumping.'

He stands in the centre of the circle she's making, arms folded across his chest. 'Good!'

'Well, I've not fallen off yet.'

'You have a good seat, and the horse likes you. You'll be fine.'

She draws the grey to a halt, pulling perhaps a little too hard on the reigns, but Jaime says nothing.

'You should become like one unit, just flesh and flesh- Like lovers…' His hand adjusts her foot in the stirrup a little, fingers tight through her boot. 'That way, when it comes to it. You won't have to ask, he'll know and when your life is on the line, you'll only have to concentrate on staying alive.'

'You want me to be the horse's lover?' Ada asks, raising an eyebrow.

Jaime laughs. 'No! But I want you to know him the way you would a lover.'

And he's looking up at her and she's looking down, and Ada wonders how to break the moment before it becomes stale. Because heat is creeping up from the tips of toes to the tops of her ears, from the warm hold he has on her foot to the base of her spine.

In the end, Jaime pats her leg and clicks his tongue for his own mount. 'Now that you can sit on a horse, we'd best be on our way,' he says, swinging up onto the black and turning them in a tight, perfect circle.

'-East,' he laughs over his shoulder and spurs on, back into the forest.

•

'Who is she?' Ada asks suddenly one grey afternoon as the horses cross a field bristling with corn stubble and struggle up the steep bank to the road.

Jaime doesn't turn in his saddle, but Ada can see his body tense painfully.

'Who?' he bats back.

She's cautious. Perhaps he doesn't want to tell her. Perhaps this is the boundary of their relationship. Perhaps there's someone else keeping them apart, a wife. A lover… The thought makes Ada sting. She's grown to feel something for him, she thinks hotly. Something she shouldn't, and the idea of Jaime being completely indifferent, or completely tied, hurts.

'Cersei,' she tries softly, drawing her horse level with his so she can read his face. 'You call out for her at night- I just wondered.'

They've crashed together in Jaime's mind and his head hurts from the thought of it. Laughing, hotheaded, strange Ada and his cool, deadly, beautiful twin. It's a smash of red and gold, and he's not entirely sure who'll come off worse.

'My sister,' he tells her curtly.

Ada realises he's annoyed and pulls back a little, her mount stamping on the hard, dry road.

'Easy on the reigns,' comes Jaime's command and anger flares in Ada's cheeks. Hot and ready. She doesn't want to explain to him that she pulled back on purpose, because it will come out clumsy. So she just bites her tongue and pats the grey's neck.

She's named him Brego, after Aragorn's horse in the Lord of the Rings. He doesn't seem to mind, but Jaime had scoffed at her and said he didn't see much point in naming a stolen horse that she won't keep. Ada had stuck her tongue out at him.

In her head, she's named his horse too. Alba, because he looks like one. An Alba, with quiet dark eyes and strong, sturdy legs.

His tense back and stiff seat in the saddle only riles Ada further and she finds herself wanting to know more. Everything. So that Jaime is hers, more than anyone else's.

'Are you close?' she asks, pulling forward and letting their legs brush.

'Twins.'

'She must be beautiful then.' It's just something that comes out, something that popped into her head. His beauty would surely be hers also? A girl. A woman, blonde and green eyed and slender.

Jaime glances at her oddly. 'She is.'

'Right.'

'She's Queen.'

'Oh.' Ada feels oddly threatened by his faceless sister. Cersei. Even the name commands attention. A queen, a beauty beyond description. She wonders why it matters, Jaime would surely be unfazed by her loveliness. The way she'd barely noticed her brother's good looks, or her sisters dark eyes and sweetness growing year by year. Siblings. You grow with them. They are what they are. Blood. Family.

'I have a brother also.'

She glances at Jaime. He seems hopeful, perhaps wishing to ease the curtness of his earlier outburst. Regretful that he snapped at her.

'Really?'

'Of course,' he laughs. 'Would I make him up?'

She growls at his teasing and tosses her dark curls. 'I was just pondering the fact that you've never talked of him before.'

'You talk enough for the two of us,' he says, snarky smile turning his mouth.

'Tell me about him,' she presses, curious and wishing for more on his mysterious sister. Cersei.

'Tyrion? He's a short man. Very short. But clever, far cleverer than me. He reads to make up for his size, and he's got a sharp tongue on him.' There's a smile that creases his eyes as he talks of his brother. 'I think of all my family, I have always had the most love for him. Being a dwarf in a house of lions does not always go well.'

He doesn't tell her of his love for Cersei, no. Let her think Tyrion his favourite sibling, forget the complications of incest.

Their knees brush. Ada wonders if he notices.

'My father, Tywin was always most disappointed in him. Perhaps because my mother died when he was born. He thinks Tyrion took her from him. He is bitter for that.'

'I would be,' she tells him.

He catches her eye, holds it. Close and green. Then he nods. 'So would I.'

She does not press for Cersei. But it comes. Stories of their mischief, Jaime throwing himself from the cliffs at Casterly Rock. He and Cersei running away and being brought back days later, hungry and cold and very ashamed. Their tricks. Their childhood games. It comes spilling from him like he's been wanting to tell someone for a long time. Perhaps he has.

•

Which way are we travelling?'

Jaime flicks her a glance over his shoulder. 'East.'

'Again?' Ada presses forward, so that they ride knee to knee.

'Yes,' Jaime's head dips in the direction they are headed. 'East yesterday, east today.'

'What's East?'

'Everything.'

'Stop being facetious.'

He laughs shortly, then looks at her. 'Well Harrenhal's East for a start, where my father is. Kingslanding. The sea.'

'This country has a coast?'

'Aye, Lots of it.'

'Ice-creams? Blackpool? Bald, fat men determined to burn?'

'Common Tongue, Ada,' he chides.

She shakes her head and laughs. 'Never mind…. Don't s'pose anyone surfs here do they?'

Jaime ignores her.

They hear the sound of the fights before they see them. Jaime stiffens a little in the saddle, draws his horse in front of Ada's protectively. 'What is it?' she asks, watching the tense turn of his back.

But as the sound swells and Jaime gets a glimpse of the crowd, he turns and grins at her. 'It's alright. It's a sword tourney.'

Ada snorts. 'Oh yes, men hacking at each other with sharp sticks for money. That sounds perfectly alright.'

But Jaime isn't listening, he's spurred his horse on towards the open field where the crowds are gathered.

'Jaime?' she kicks Brego forwards. 'What are you doing? Jaime!'

'Don't worry little fox, this is something I'm good at.'

Ada rolls her eyes. 'Potential of death, fools with swords, why doesn't it surprise me that you're good at it?'

They reach a fence where Jaime drops down gracefully from the saddle and ties the reigns to the bar, pats the neck of his horse.

'What are you going to do?"

'Me? I'm going to fight, see if I can earn us some money.' He grins as he helps her down from the horse. 'You know, I've never earned a penny before in my life. This should be fun.'

'Fun? Or suicidal?'

'Ada,' he slings his arm about her shoulders, and hugs her to him. 'You, worry too much.'

'I'm just worried you'll be recognised!' she protests. 'What if you're recognised?'

'Oh, I won't be talking to anyone. No, you'll be selling me and all I'll do is put on a helmet and do the winning.'

'Selling you?'

He grins roguishly. 'You'll see.'

The tourney ground is makeshift. There are men carrying rusted blades and chinking money purses. Dogs run through the legs of the milling people and children pick pockets and hang from the rails of the sword ring, watching for the blood and guts that would make most turn a little green.

Jaime is lapping it up, Ada can see. His gaze is bright and expectant. He eyes every sword that passes him, every man is weighed up silently. Carefully.

'There!' Jaime has caught her sleeve. 'Tell him I'll need a blade and a helmet, but I'll give him the best fight he's seen in years.' And he shoves her towards a man in a worn velvet waist coat, sat behind a table with money and parchment scattered haphazardly across it.

He doesn't stir when she clears her throat. Ada scowls.

'I've got a man for your fights.'

'All the contesters have been accounted for, you're too late.' He doesn't look up.

Ada feels annoyance building. 'He's the best swordsman from the Wall to Hellholt! He'll give you fights like you've never seen before.'

He snorts. 'They all say that.'

'Yeah, well this time it's true.'

He looks up. 'Where is he then, this legendary swordsman?'

She nods over her shoulder at Jaime.

'He's as skinny as a colt.'

'But he fights like a lion.'

The man sniffs. 'If he could beat Jaime fucking Lannister, then maybe I'd take him on-'

'Oh,' Ada interrupts, grinning. 'He could.'

The man laughs. 'Who is he, your sweetheart? Protecting his reputation? Let him come over here and do it for himself.'

'Listen,' Ada says, pressing her palms to the table and leaning forward. 'You want a good fight. You want men to bet and lose and then bet again. Well this man can give you that. I swear, on my honour.'

The man looks from Ada to Jaime then shakes his head. 'What's he called then?'

'Lars…' she searches for a suitable name. 'Lars Steele.'

'Alright.'

'Oh, and he needs a sword. And a helmet.'

The man shakes his head. 'He'd better be worth all this trouble, girl. Else you'll be paying for the matches we don't have time to run.'

Ada says nothing, just turns and winks at Jaime over her shoulder.

The sword he's given is stocky and dented, but Jaime seems content enough with a blade in his grip once more. He swings it lazily and then weighs it in his hand. 'Well, it's not Valyrian steel,' he grins at her, wild and fierce in his beard. Ada doesn't envy his opponents.

'Listen!' she says, as he picks up the helmet and is about to shove the dented thing over his head. 'Jaime-' he hushes her, smiling. 'Sorry- Lars…'

She takes his face in her hands and with her sat up on the fence, they're almost level heights. 'Don't do anything stupid. If you're beaten, then yield. If you lose, it's fine. Don't hurt yourself, and whatever you do - don't die. Promise?'

Jaime leans in close, puts a hand either side of her on the fence and butts his forehead gently against hers. 'Jaime Lannister never loses, Little Fox. So there's no danger of me dying.'

Jaime Lannister might never lose a fight, Ada thinks nervously as Jaime takes to the ring, face hidden. Lars Steele has never fought anyone in his short, imaginary life, and he could die here…

But Ada has never seen Jaime fight before. In fact, she's never seen a proper sword fight. And it's perfect.

Jaime is an athlete, even starved and bearded. He's a golden swordsman, a streak of metal and man - there and then away, strike and strike. Advance and advance before there's even a chance of retaliation. Then he's spinning back, steps assured and effortless. He moves like a dancer. I must ask if he dances without a blade. Ada thinks wistfully.

He wins three fights, one after the other. Perfect and untouched. And utterly, utterly arrogant- Ada realises with a jolt just how cocky Jaime Lannister can be. She shakes her head at his antics; he plays the crowd until they're crowing for him. On the fourth fight, blood is drawn, bright and deadly on Jaime's forearm. He backs up, mouth splitting into a delighted smile beneath the helmet. Ada chews her lip and prays that's the only blood he'll lose that day. But he wins that fight laughing, then another.

Victorious and puffed up from the cheers of the crowd, Jaime crosses to her at the side of the ring and sweeps a bow. The audience claps and laughs.

'Lady,' he says, presenting his sword. 'For want of a token, you're meant to kiss the blade…'

Ada raises a brow. The steel hasn't been bloodied, Jaime has won by perfect skill and he knows it, it's there in the assured turn of his mouth. But Ada wants to wipe the smile off his face, or at least shock him out of this arrogance.

So she ignores his blade and leans forward. Takes his helmeted head in both hands and plants a lingering, sweet kiss on his smirking mouth.

Her nose bumps hard against the metal of the helmet's nose piece, but it wipes the smile from his face and no mistake.

But her triumph and his astonishment are shattered.

A voice, loud and clear. 'Fuck me, it's Jaime Lannister!'


	8. Tough Love

Dear Lovely Readers, firstly - a thousand apologies for the appalling lack of updates! I've just finished school, (forever!) and was caught up in all of that - oh and I managed to fit in a little break away with my friends post-exams. I hope you will find it in you to forgive my absence.

So much love for my reviewers, who are absolute stars and to all those of you who have read and favourited or are following this story. The next chapter will be much more prompt, I promise. But I'd love to hear from you before then - and now that fanfiction have made it SO much easier to drop a review, I look forward to reading your thoughts.

Much love, LB.

.

**Chapter Seven**

**Tough Love**

_She ignores his blade and leans forward. Takes his helmeted head in both hands and plants a lingering, sweet kiss on his smirking mouth._

_Her nose bumps hard against the metal of the helmet's nose piece, but it wipes the smile from his face and no mistake._

_But her triumph and his astonishment are shattered._

_A voice, loud and clear. 'Fuck me, it's Jaime Lannister!'_

•

The moment has been frozen. It would be comical, Jaime's mouth half open inches from hers, with his perfect white teeth showing a little behind his lips. Ada's eyes fixed sightlessly on a spot on his dented helmet. Comical if it wasn't for the pounding of her heart in her chest, so heavy it might burst through her ribs at any moment and her tongue, dry and useless, stuck to the roof of her mouth. A dead, pointless thing, suddenly taking up too much of her throat - making it difficult to breathe.

But they're laughing.

The crowd are laughing, and it parts, just to Jaime's left - a figure flung high above the people, flopping forward from his straw waist, with his head lolling in a heavy helmet.

Jaime's eyes are no longer on her mouth, rather he's backing away with his hands set at her waist to stop her from toppling forward over the rail and his mouth is turning in an amused confusion.

It's a straw dummy, dressed in a golden helmet which means it's whole body is dragged down by the weight. There's a white cloak trailing from it's narrow shoulders and, beneath, it's armour is dim gold and dented.

Their eyes meet across the ring and Jaime is smiling once more. He dips his head at her in a strangely formal acknowledgement, but Ada knows it's more than just that - it's _I'm alright, I can take care of this._

'And so, our victor takes on the Lion of Lannister!' And there's a volley of boos and yells. 'Lars Steele against, Ser Jaime Lannister…'

But Ada is barely listening. Her heart has calmed to a steadier beat and her mouth is no longer parched.

He had wanted that, she thinks flatly. He knew what she'd do. He'd known. Her lips seem to pulse with the rhythm of her angry heartbeat, where his mouth had touched hers… His breath had been sweet in her mouth when he'd opened his lips just a little, the shock of her boldness making him exhale briefly. His lips had been chapped, dry and plush, and she'd felt the prickle of his beard against her chin and cheeks as he'd leant in- he _had_ leant in, hadn't he? Just for a moment, before the shout had gone up. She'd known because when they froze his helmet had been pressed painfully hard into the bridge of her nose.

Ada reaches up and feels the faint impression the metal has left.

Beyond her addled thoughts, Jaime is fighting himself. Baiting the straw dummy, making the crowd clap their pleasure at their faceless victor.

Straw Jaime is losing badly.

Ada leans heavily on the rail, digs her nails into the wood and draws in splinters.

She wishes he'd hurry up. The crowd have had their share of him for today, she wants to get going again. It's making her nervous. All these people, someone who might recognise them, or him at least. There's no-one here who'd recognise her.

Jaime takes off the dummy's head with a strong swing of his blade and raises it in victory and Ada feels an overpowering sense of foreboding, so strong it comes like a wave of sickness. The crowd echoes in her ears and all she can see is the straw head in it's bright helmet against the sand of the ring and it's thin, scarecrow body still propped up - in the white cloak of Jaime's Kingsguard.

•

They settle their winnings quickly, upon Ada's insistence.

She drags on Jaime's arm as they return to the horses, but he pulls his fingers loose - chinks the money bag merrily. Tosses it from one hand to the other, obviously very pleased with himself.

To make a point, she asks him whilst they're seeing to their mounts - tightening saddle straps and untying the reigns: 'What armour was that?'

'Kingsguard,' Jaime tells her, and for a moment his face grows serious. 'One of them must have been killed.'

Ada lets him give her a leg up into the saddle.

'You're Kingsguard, aren't you?' She looks down at him, the side of his face, left cheek turned away.

'Yes.'

•

Jaime says they're headed north now. Yes Ada, north. Towards Riverrun, hoping to pick up the river again and then towards the Trident. It's close to the Starks and Tullys, but there's not much they can do about that. Every Northman will know by now that the Kingslayer is escaped. Their best bet is just to keep moving.

They'd passed the river again yesterday, it's dark currents rushing steadily before it was swallowed by the forest once more and only the sound of the water passing was proof it had ever been there at all.

On the sixth night it had started to snow. Thick white flakes. They'd woken from the cold in the early hours. Jaime had sworn and laughed, reached out and taken a handful of snow from Ada's shoulder - let it drop to the chill ground in irregular clumps.

'It's coming-' he'd whispered, tucking her back under his chin and securing his arms about her once more. 'Winter, after all these years... I've never known it snow this far South.'

'Is that good?'

'_Good_?' He'd laughed. A short, Jaime-like bark. 'I don't know if it's good, but it's not bad either. It's just fucking bad luck-'

Travelling is the hardest it's ever been. The snow makes progress slow and heavy, bright ice water clinging to their clothes and drifts so deep you could lose a boot, or so cold that your toes dress in black and grey and then fall off. The horses slip on the good roads, with the ice hidden beneath the snow - they have to go carefully, and the snow means they leave tracks. They'd found the hanging corpses of three Lannister men the other day, covered in a chill white blanket to hide their rotting features. But it didn't stop the crows that resettled once the horses had passed by, picking and fighting over the swinging bodies. Jaime had said nothing, but Ada noticed the tense line that appeared when he clenched his teeth, running from cheekbone to jaw.

They're tramping north still, walking to give the horses a break. Jaime up ahead, his longer legs giving him an advantage over a tired, irritable Ada.

'We all live in a yellow submarine-' she starts, letting all the words match the time of her feet. But to be honest, she's never been all that fond of the Beatles, so she wracks her brains for another tune to keep her spirits higher than their current situation. Which is about level with her boots.

'Keep your head up!' Jaime hears. 'Keep your heart strong-'

He rolls his eyes, pulls the cloak he had stolen from a washing line tighter about him, glances back. 'Must you sing all the time?'

She looks up at him.

'No.'

'Then might you stop?'

She considers. 'Perhaps. Will you sing instead?'

Jaime gives her a look.

'Fine. Thats just, fine.'

•

Something changes one cold, grey night. It's started to snow again, white flakes settling on them both and their breath billowing in the chill air.

Jaime is asleep, but Ada is awake, huddled against him for warmth. For comfort. She's thinking about Phil. He must be missing her by now. They all must. It's been two months maybe, since the crash and her world seems to be slipping steadily through her fingertips.

She had tried to picture her dad the other day and come up blank. It made her eyes sting with tears and when Jaime had asked if there was anything wrong she had just shaken her head and blamed it on the cold.

The ring had been in her car, under the handbrake in the little well where things sit easily. She had taken it off before going in the house, not wanting to rile her parents anymore than she had to. She hadn't had time to slip it on again before the crash.

Jaime murmurs in his sleep.

His collar digs into the back of her head and she shuffles down a little, trying to avoid the chill of the metal.

Ada is distracted by his hands on her waist, one trips higher, finding her breast through her shirt and kneading it gently.

She flushes, ready to push his hand away. But the name that drops from his mouth has her still and frozen and flushing hot and cold.

'Cersei…' he whispers, fingers working nimbly over her nipple, brushing it through the fabric.

Ada stares right ahead, at the darkness.

_Cersei_.

Her heart constricts.

His sister.

His _twin_.

She shoves his hand away angrily, and retreats from his chest. His warmth gone, she shivers, but the cold is not the only thing making her shake.

Jaime's murmuring. His fumbling.

What if... What if? She shakes her head to clear it.

She couldn't just make this up, it was unfounded. Unfair.

But her mind starts to throw up evidence, like a dog digging for a bone, kicking up dirt and mud. His reaction when she had asked after Cersei. The warmth in his eyes when he talked about her. That time in the barn when they'd first fled, his hands stroking at her waist and muttering his twin's name.

She has to know. It burns her insides, chokes her. She _has_ to know.

She shakes him awake roughly, angry at him already. At his crime.

'What? What is it?' His voice is rough from sleep, low in his throat. Thick with tiredness.

'Cersei?' she asks archly, sitting back on her heels watching him. 'Your twin? Your sister?'

'Yes? Seven Hells Ada! is that what you woke me up to ask? To quiz me on something I've already told you?' His voice is bitter, angry at her waking him. Angry at his tiredness.

'No. That's not all,' she folds her arms defensively over her chest. 'Why do you feel me up when you murmur her name, Jaime? Why do you call out to her in your sleep? Please tell me I'm wrong!' she begs, staring at him. 'Please tell me that you haven't had sex with your twin.'

His face, so open and perfect, closes and sharpens and grows drawn. 'You know nothing of what you speak,' he growls, voice low and threatening.

Ada stares, heart thudding fit to burst.

'It's true?'

'Ada-' his tone is warning, but she's having none of it.

'I think I have a right to know whether or not I'm just a substitute for your sister when you feel me up in the night! If you've been fucking your twin Jaime Lannister, I think you need to be a man and tell me.' In the silence of the snow, there's no escaping the anger in her voice.

He's wide awake now, green eyes furious and unforgiving. Ada realises how his enemies must feel when they meet him on the battlefield. Terrified and trembling, certain of only one thing. That he will kill them swiftly.

'We are lovers.' It is said quietly. Like an oath, like a confession.

He looks half ashamed, half defiant.

Ada gazes at him, at all his beauty and thinks how tarnished he looks. How worn.

She stands abruptly, crosses to a tree the other side of the horses and wraps his coat about her, determined to ignore him.

Sleep comes quickly, thankfully. But not for Jaime.

Jaime Lannister is left to the dark and his own dark thoughts.

•

They do not speak next morning.

Jaime saddles his horse in stony silence and does not wait for Ada as he mounts up and starts along the track back towards the road.

Ada follows behind a little while later, hanging back and feeling wretched. Never mind the fact that it is his sin that has driven the rift between them. His sister.

Their enforced stalemate is broken two days later, passing through a snow covered town with a tavern and a group of men outside. They move quickly, as always, but one of the men shouts and his friends join him.

'You look like that fucking Lannister bastard!' one bellows at Jaime, face grimy with dirt and drink.

Jaime laughs carelessly. 'If I were a Lannister do you think I'd be in this piss hole?'

Some of the men holler and laugh with him. But the first is still insistent. 'The Kingslayer, you could be his brother. I saw him when I was in Kingslanding last year!'

'Then perhaps I could fool Lord Tywin into giving me some gold,' Jaime jests, smiling, but Ada can sense him growing tenser in the saddle. She knows the telltale tightening of his jaw, his green eyes squint and his mouth grows thinner. It had been the same with Robb Stark, a glint had appeared in his eye. As though he relished the conflict but was wound tight for it's outcome.

'Wasn't he captured by the Stark boy some months back?' another asks, eyeing the collar about Jaime's neck.

Jaime meets Ada's gaze with keen green eyes, nods on up the road. 'You go.' He tells her curtly. 'Go. Go now.'

She shakes her head, staying stubbornly beside him. 'If these men convince themselves you're Jaime Lannister, what chance do you have alone?' She whispers fiercely.

Jaime lets out a frustrated breath, forced through his long nose.

'Good day to you then, Sers,' he calls glibly and forces the two mounts into a tighter trot as they work their way out of the village.

With the men behind them, Jaime seems to deflate a little. He spurs his horse on faster, drawing out the distance between them, but Ada calls him back.

'Wait!'

Jaime turns his horse in a close circle, his face turned with confusion. Quizzical. One brow raised.

She dismounts a little awkwardly and sticks her hands on her hips, plan forming. There are houses lining the road, dark low things, with a single door and dirt walls, thatched roofs. Ada ducks into the closest one, feeling brave for once. Her decisiveness gives her courage. She knows whats she needs. Inside, it's dark and smoky with the stink of living. Luckily, she comes across no angry householders. Her eyes adjust to the dark and she squints around. A knife. Please let there be a knife.

There's bread on the table, and a bowl of something congealing. As though the people here have just left and mean to return any moment - even the fire still glows. She wants to steal the bread, but it doesn't feel right. Instead, she pushes round in the clutter covering the wooden worktop and finds what she was looking for.

When she returns outside with it Jaime is waiting, high on his black horse. 'You mean to kill me, little fox? I've become too much of a liability for you.'

'I mean no such thing, Kingslayer. Though if your wisdom matched your wit and arrogance we might not find ourselves so hunted.' She unsheathed the knife and looked at him expectantly. 'Get down.'

He dismounts lazily, watching her curiously as she crosses to him.

'Kneel.'

He does so, making a deal of pressing his hands into the dirt and turning his face up to hers from his lowered vantage. Their eyes meet uneasily, Ada trying to avoid his gaze. Jaime defiant, as ever.

She takes a clump of his blonde hair in her hand. 'You mean to crop me,' he says, watching her with green eyes. 'Sensible I suppose. But that does not solve the problem of my still being Jaime Lannister by name.'

'Then I'll call you something else,' she explains curtly as the knife hacks through his hair.

Jaime's locks fall away easily, golden under the grime. She cuts it to an inch and a half, so that it spikes on his head and scuffs easily. His scalp has been burnt, she can see through the thick blonde hair. It feels odd to look down on him, when he stands so tall beside her usually. Strange with the beard and cropped curls. She keeps a lock, stuffs it into the tight pocket of her breeches without his seeing. When she's done, she smoothes a hand over the top of his head.

'It's too golden,' she tells him absently.

Jaime wipes his hands in the dirt and slicks them through his hair, staining it dark. 'Better?'

He stands.

'Jan,' she says suddenly. 'Jan Rede.'

Jaime sniffs and scrubs his cheeks. 'Alright, if it makes you happy.'

He hovers for a little, as though he's wanting to say more, but then turns and makes back towards his mount.

Ada calls him back. 'Jaime!'

He turns. His face is brown and clear, mouth open a little with white teeth showing.

'It's not my place to judge you on the past,' Ada says flatly. 'Whatever you did, it's not for me to say if it was right or wrong. You make your own decisions. I might not I agree, but it doesn't mean- You're still the man I know. You're still Jaime. Whatever you've done,' she falters. 'Your sister- whatever, I mean… It's up to you who you… love. But please, let's not go on in silence. We're friends, aren't we?'

Jaime looks at her, standing with the knife held tightly in her hand, face set in determination. He knows her thighs are raw from riding and her hands are blistered. Her face is burnt across the nose and her shoulders are tight and painful.

He knows she's not forgiven him. He's not stupid. It's the silence that's been oppressing her, along with the muffling effect of the snow and the whisper of the chill wind. The tired, grey snow clouds.

She's just said it so they can talk again, and for that he's grateful.

'More than friends, Ada,' he tells her solidly. 'Companions.'

•

'This is madness!'

Ada can barely hear Jaime over the raging of the wind. Snow whips up from the banks either side of the road and flings itself into her eyes, blinding and freezing all at once.

Brego throws up his head behind her, and stamps out his anger on the frozen ground. She grits her teeth against the pain in her shoulder and tugs the reluctant horse on, levelling with Jaime and huddling in close to him.

'The wind's too strong, we can barely see and it's not yet nightfall!'

Even though he's standing beside her, it's hard to make out the words that are dragged from his mouth.

'What do you suggest we do then?' she asks, chewing her lip and finding his pink lidded gaze through the blur of falling snow.

'Keep going and find that inn, I think we can afford to-'

But his words are lost and Ada shakes her head. 'What?'

'Spend some of my tourney money!' Jaime shouts, suddenly too loud in her ear. 'Sorry-' he half laughs and rubs a hurried arm round her shoulders.

A mile back they had spotted the lights of a roadside inn through the snow and Ada had thought longingly of the warm, smoky interior and a hot drink and food cooked by someone else, and then a bed, with sheets… But in the last fifteen minutes, the lights had disappeared and as they peer into the oncoming darkness, it looks less and less likely they'll be staying anywhere tonight.

They tramp on.

Minutes pass.

Then, as if by some miracle, a hanging light swings out at them through the snow. Buffeted by the wind, the flare is hemmed in on all sides by glass and swings from an iron bar stuck out from the welcome front of the wooden building.

Jaime gives the boy by the door a copper coin to see to the horses and, freezing and shivering, they stumble through the dark doorway and into the front room beyond.

It's a welter of noise, heat and light. Ada is brought up short, takes a deep breath in and then chokes on someones smoke. Jaime laughs behind her and pulls her hood down, scattering snow onto his boots. 'We'll have to be inconspicuous. We're very near Riverrun here, these are Tully men - maybe Starks too… Just follow my lead, eh?'

He has the most appalling common accent she's ever heard. She almost snorts aloud as he asks the innkeeper whether he has rooms to spare, Luckily, the two men are deep enough in conversation not to notice, so Ada can hide her slip behind a hand and choke out her laughter into her palm.

Jaime turns to her swiftly. 'He's got one room,' he tells her quietly. 'That's all, shall we take it?'

Ada raises an eyebrow. 'Obviously.'

They settle at the bar, all the places by the fire already taken, and thaw quietly. Jaime orders two tankards of hot mead and when they come, watches Ada with amusement as she inspects her drink.

'It's not poisonous, you know.'

'It smells foul,' she says, nose wrinkling. 'Like… like sweet horse shit.'

'It's a fermentation of honey and water,' he explains smoothly, then his mouth twists. 'Or so I've been informed.'

'Well-' Ada curls her fingers round the handle. 'It's hot. Cheers.' And they clash tankards roughly and drink.

Surprisingly, it's not as bad as it smells. Oddly spiced and filling.

'How alcoholic is this?'

'Not enough to get you drunk properly,' Jaime grins, watching her dip her finger idly into the mead and following it to her mouth.

A man crosses to the bar behind Ada and settles himself on a stool noisily, shouts for a drink and laughs. Ada turns, despite of herself and finds it would be rude to turn back, seeing as he's looking at her.

The man's face is perfectly smooth, the skin between his cheeks and chin stretched like a hide ready to be tanned - brown and worn. His mouth is a puckered crease in his flat face, and his teeth sit behind slightly sunken lips, meaning they press against the folds of his mouth like they're trying to escape. But his eyes are bright and sharp, clear beneath the quirk of a grey brow. She takes him in at a glance.

'Hello…'

Behind her, Jaime snorts into his mead.

'Evening.'

Ada bites her mouth and tries to think of something to say.

'Freezing out ain't it?' He says.

She nods in agreement. 'Not had a winter start like this in years.'

'No, well. Not since you were a babe in arms I shouldn't think!' And he grins and thanks the innkeeper as his drink is pushed across the bar.

'Where are you from, child?'

Ada's eyes widen. 'Raventree,' she says without blinking. She swallows. 'Well, from round there.'

'You've travelled alone?'

'Oh, no!' She turns back to Jaime gratefully. 'I'm with him.'

'Jan,' Jaime says, extending a hand round her and trying on his slightly strained accent once more. Luckily, it seems a slight improvement on the one he used with the innkeeper.

They eat at the bar, talking with the man - Ion. Well Jaime is doing most of the talking, Ada is gulping her food and then watching them ease into familiar conversation, oiled well with the drink and the warmth and the knowledge that outside, the world is frozen and still.

She's just noticing properly for the first time - now that Jaime's accent has slipped so much it's nonexistent - the way his t's turn softly into d's, everything is gentler with him, more sibilant. She's almost drowned out the other man to listen to Jaime's voice, when she hears through the fug of conversation his name and the Starks'.

She sits up.

Waits for a lull.

'Why _do_ the Tullys and Starks hate Jaime Lannister so?' she asks abruptly.

Jaime looks at her sharply.

Ion notices nothing. 'Why do they hate the Kingslayer?' he slaps his knee. 'Why coming from Raventree I'd have thought you'd know that! Bright little thing like you-'

But despite his amazement at her ignorance, he seems content to tell all. 'Well, I've heard - from reliable sources mind - that when the King was up in Winterfell some months back, that that poor little lad - Bran, is it? Well, the climber anyway. He were climbing one of the towers and found the Lannister twins rutting like randy badgers - poor, sweet boy had nowhere to go. They say Jaime Lannister pulls him up quick as you like, right by the scruff, and then drops him, back through the window. Nearly forty feet to fall, no wonder he can't use his legs anymore. It's a bloody miracle he survived! I know if it had been any son of mine, I'd want that bastard strung up like he deserves - _that's_ why the Stark's hate Jaime Lannister, child. That and him being a bloody backstabbing traitor, sisterfucker and Lannister to boot. Bad blood will out, that's what I say- Ought to get rid of the lot of them…'

But Ada's stopped listening.

She's looking at Jaime and he's looking back with such an open, blank expression that it chills her to the bone.

'You?' She whispers, quiet enough that only they can hear.

He doesn't say anything, just draws his mouth in slightly so that it pulls between his teeth and hollows his cheeks. It's enough.

Ada excuses herself and flees upstairs, and doesn't look back. Not once.


	9. Dane

Dearest Readers, here is the next instalment. Much prompter, as I promised.

But if I get lots of lovely reviews, I promise to update within a few days! Jaime was mucking around in this chapter, refusing to be good and let me write him, so if he's not quite in character I'm sorry, the bad man was being very difficult!

I've been going mad writing dialogue and bits of future scenes, and there's some scenes I'm sure you'll love… but bear with me, they're coming up soon. Here I am also, sending out a plea for reviews - they're the juice I run on, as I'm sure anyone out there with a story knows :) I truly have no shame!

RJM - thank you so much, you reviewed every chapter! Words cannot express :) and who wouldn't want cool adventures with Jaime eh?

Rf - Aww, I've missed updating! Thanks for your kind words.

Happy reading everyone.

**.**

**Chapter Eight**

**Displacement Activities**

_'Why do the Tullys and Starks hate Jaime Lannister so?' she asks abruptly._

_'...They say Jaime Lannister pulls him up quick as you like, right by the scruff, and then drops him, back through the window. Nearly forty feet drop, no wonder he can't use his legs anymore. It's a bloody miracle he survived...'_

_Ada's stopped listening._

_She's looking at Jaime. And he's looking back with such an open, blank expression that it chills her to the bone. 'You?' She whispers, quiet enough that only they can hear._

_He doesn't say anything, just draws his mouth in slightly so that it pulls between his teeth and hollows his cheeks. It's enough._

_Ada excuses herself and flees upstairs, and doesn't look back. Not once._

•

It's a double bed, but it could hardly called such. Ada lies in the middle of it, wrapped in the covers and with her eyes resolutely shut. She is determined not to talk to him when he comes in, not to look at him even. And she will _not_ be sharing a bed with him. Never. Ever.

Childish, she thinks. Her actions had been childish, running away like that without a word and now lying curled up in all the blankets so that there is not a space for him in the bed, not even anything to cover himself with should he decide to sleep on the floor. But for once she's feeling righteously petulant. He had withheld so much from her. Such dark, dangerous, _important_ things. It wasn't fair. And it was so horribly, tantalisingly wrong. How could someone so beautiful be so ugly inside? To throw a child from a tower in the hope of killing him, just because he's seen you… seen you having sex with your sister.

Ada finds herself both disgusted and pitying. To fall in love with a twin, surely the worst luck in the world - or perhaps the most depraved. Because the selfish, rational bit of her thinks he could have avoided this, just the same way you tell yourself it's not right to have a crush on your teacher or a friend's boyfriend. _You exercise some self control_, she thinks angrily. But then the Jaime she knows doesn't have an ounce of that.

Perhaps Cersei - her thoughts turn dark and sour - perhaps she's cleverer than Jaime. Manipulative. She is Queen _and_ her brother's lover, surely that tells of some kind of deviousness? How sorely Ada would like to place the blame at his faceless sister's feet. It would be so much easier.

She rolls over and clutches the sheets up under her chin, stares at the darkness of the chamber. But then… Jaime had been the one to throw the child, and kill the old King. Kingslayer. It's always said with such a mocking bitterness, and never fails to send a muscle ticking in his jaw, or a tightness at his temples, shown by a rising vein beneath the skin. Perhaps there's justice in why the people hate him so. Ada feels betrayed. She had thought him unfairly set upon, thought that the people turned on him because they had no understanding of him. That, like her own predicament, no-one knew the truth about him. But now, that comforting illusion is becoming harder and harder to maintain.

She wants to rage at him, but the coward in her is afraid. _He would not stop to kill me_, she thinks wildly. _I'm just slowing him down, stopping him from returning to his sister more quickly. I'm baggage, worthless, plain baggage._

'Jaime...' she whispers, and his name turns sour on her tongue.

She has been naive, she realises. To think that just because he was a knight, a handsome, charming, captive knight that somehow the rest of this mad world was at fault. He was not to blame for the cruelty of the people or the harshness of their culture. Somehow, he was different.

Not so.

She's interrupted by the latch on the door lifting, the noise sharp in the still room.

Her eyes snap shut once more.

It's Jaime. She can hear the regular huff of his breathing and the shuffle of his boots on the boards.

Twin thuds as they are pulled off, one after the other and drop beside the bed.

Then, to her utmost horror, the bed dips to her left and there's a soft grunt and a whisper of breath as Jaime lays himself out on the pallet beside her.

They lie in the darkness together, neither saying a word. Perhaps he thinks she's asleep… Ada tries not to move and deepens her breathing carefully.

'Are you going to hog the blankets like this all night?' comes his low voice through the darkness.

Ada starts so violently the bed jolts.

She feels she must reply, in order to preserve her dignity as much as anything else. If there's one thing Jaime loves having, it's the last word. She will not give him the satisfaction. So she answers, tightly. 'Yes.'

'Right.'

In the dark, he's turned his head to look at her. Ada can tell, her skin prickles uncomfortably under his gaze.

'Don't stare at me,' she hisses. 'Don't you know it's rude?'

'I'm not staring,' he replies, with infuriating lightness. 'I was hoping you'd move over and give me some more room.'

She'll grant him that, at least. Ada shuffles over to the far side of the bed, taking the blankets with her. They're bunched uncomfortably now but she will not provoke him to further taunting by moving any more than she has to.

The two of them are shoulder to shoulder in the narrow bed, staring up at the low ceiling.

Outside, the wind rattles the shutters and the scent brought in by the draught is icy and tells of more snowfall.

Eventually, Jaime speaks again.

'I wouldn't blame you if you wish never to speak to me again,' he tells the darkness, sounds soft as ever, tongue going round the words carefully, like each has been thought of and picked just for her. 'But I still owe you my life in return for setting me free.'

Ada bristles at the thought that he feels bound to help her, bound by some kind of twisted duty. 'You owe me nothing,' she whispers, staring straight up at the beams above their heads.

Jaime huffs out a heavy breath. She is being stubborn, prideful. He knows these traits well, for they are his own.

But truthfully he cannot blame her. He had allowed her to place him in too high a regard, without warning her of the tarnishes on his character. He is not, he has never been, spotless. There has always been a mocking side to his character he could not shake off, a condescension. Some would call it cruelty, Jaime wields it as a weapon. Hides himself behind the shield of japes and wry, irreverent comments. He had not been ready to show Ada that reckless part of him, the part that throws children from towers. In part because he wished to see what she made of him without the rumours of his sister and the Stark boy, and because he _liked_ her liking him. He liked her happy in his company, without inhibitions or fears that he would strike or frighten her.

He swallows heavily, glances across. Now he can see her profile in the dimness, his eyes more adjusted to the room's gloom. Her eyes gleam. She's awake still.

'I will take you to Harrenhal, I swear.'

He sees her throat bob.

Her mouth parts, as though she's battling with herself to bring out the words. 'How-' she falters. 'A child, Jaime. How…?'

Jaime sits up suddenly, towering over her in the narrow bed.

'What?' his voice is low, dangerous. 'How could I throw a ten year old to his death? Go on!' he baits, almost eagerly. 'Ask me, ask me Ada.'

Ada sits up and flinches away from him. 'Alright then, how?'

Jaime huffs out what could pass as a laugh, tense with energy and stands. 'It was easy, Ada. You know how it goes. It was her, or him. Us, or him.'

Ada knows instantly what he is referring and flushes hotly. 'I killed that guard because I had to! We had to get out-'

'I threw that boy because I had to,' Jaime counters heatedly. 'It was brash, but I am brash and thoughtless.' He's not quite sure why he's admitting this to her, and through a haze of anger he feels disgusted at himself. 'I act first, then deal with the consequences.'

'Shut up!' Ada says, blocking her ears and crossing to the darkened window. 'I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear!'

Jaime stares, a little taken aback but not showing it on the blank canvas of his face. Rather, he takes her in slowly, the outline of her body against the dark wall. The blankets in a rough pile on the bed.

'Are you frightened of me?' he asks lowly, watching carefully for her reaction.

Her shoulders stiffen defiantly. 'No.'

A shiver of anger passes through him. He wants her to feel something, other than this infuriating denial. Her unwillingness to know anything more of him makes him want to shake her roughly, or worse, grab her shoulders and brush a burning, hungry kiss to her lips.

Something, to snap her from this childish ignorance.

'You know what I thought of when I first met you?' he asks, crossing so that he stands directly behind her, blocking in her body with his own. 'Do you? I thought, how can I kill this girl and get myself out. Look at me Ada, I thought how I could kill you and then a guard and then I could flee, back to Kingslanding and my sister.' He grabs her. 'Look at me! I am not a monster, Addy. Don't delude yourself. I'm flesh and man - feel.' He takes her hand roughly and puts it to his cheek. 'Look at me - I will not make this easy for you. I've done this. I've done all this. Me. Jaime Lannister. Not some faceless demon - me.'

She wrenches herself from his grasp. 'I know, Kingslayer. I know what you've done. I've heard it all so loud it rings about my head and I think I will go mad with it! Fuck your sister all you want, throw as many boys from towers as you like, I don't care. I just want to go home. I miss my family, I miss my friends. I miss Phil. I don't want to hear anything more about your fucked up family or your stupid, flippant, _pointless_ jesting! Just take me somewhere where you can leave me safe to preserve your _precious_ honour and then go back to guarding your bastard son. What kind of a man are you anyway?'

And Jaime cannot reply, because he hates the answer he would be forced to give.

She throws a blanket at him and returns to the bed in stony silence.

Jaime arranges himself on the floor by the door, listening to the sounds of her settling.

'I care for you deeply, little fox,' he tells her eventually, voice soft.

Her answer is biting. 'Shut up, Kingslayer. I'm sick of your jesting.'

'I was being sincere!'

'You are incapable of sincerity.'

And she turns over and begs for sleep.

•

It turns colder, days have passed. They talk little. Ada can tell Jaime is growing weary. He has lost his spark, that humour that infused him following their escape has gone.

She's daydreaming, snow falls round them. For a moment, she'd forgotten the cold and her raw thighs and her blistered palms.

'Stay where you are!'

On their sodden mounts, the two riders freeze. Faces tight and anxious, their fingers clenched hard on the reigns. Ready to flee.

'We mean no harm,' the man shouts, edging his black horse closer to the woman and her grey. 'We are unarmed.'

'Save for this,' murmurs Ada, tapping the knife at her belt.

Jaime can't help a smirk. 'I would be happier had I kept the sword from the tourney.'

'Much good it would have done you.'

'Dismount!' comes the command.

The two hesitate. If Jaime looks hard, squints against the flare of the sun on snow and the deep green dark of the trees he can see someone…

Another, rougher voice. 'Dismount or we lame your horses.'

A warning arrow lands at the black mount's feet and the horse shies a little.

The snow laden trees shift nervously around them as the two slip down from their saddles. Drifts drop from the branches and slop onto the snow covering the road, the melt water patters down.

Their assailants are nowhere to be seen.

The man looks terser now, irritation showing in his darkened features. His eyes shrewd and green, his mouth set.

'Show us your faces. We travel alone and in peace.'

'There is no peace in these lands…' comes the first, strong voice. It's curt and educated, accompanied by the wumph of falling snow and the soft crunch of boots.

He comes into view. Stocky, blond. In a dark green cloak and a red brown jerkin. A hand rests on the pommel of a blade.

'…only the fight for it.'

'Then we would aid you in your battle,' Jaime tells him. 'Friend-'

'Who are you, and what is your business?'

Jaime's blond beauty hunches a little more, he drops his stance, becomes less knight. More peasant. Less nobleman, more fugitive.

'I'm Jan,' he puts a safe, brown hand on his chest. 'This is Ada. We were prisoners of Lord Lefford but escaped. Now we travel south in search of safety, and companions.'

Their assailant touches his throat, indicates Jaime. 'The collar. From your time in the dungeons?'

'Yes.'

'It suits you well.' The edges of his eyes crease, and the iris' shine palest blue. His skin is brown and worn and his eyebrows so blond they are almost lost.

Jaime. Jan, puts a protective hand on Ada's shoulder.

'Are you a small group?'

He proffers a hand, beckons.

Three men emerge, all young and wary.

'Sasha.' He points - the youngest, square faced and lean. 'Idan,' a taller man, with shrewd eyes and a sharp nose. 'Nate,' thin and dark. 'And I'm Dane.'

Dane looks at his two travellers. 'What shall I do with you?' he asks, sticks his tongue in his cheek and looks at his men.

The snow is starting to fall again, flakes of it dropping and clinging to Ada's dark curls and the leather surcoat Jaime had given to her all those weeks ago in the wood. It is Jaime's day to wear their stolen cloak, so she is shivering a little.

Dane's eyes move to her. 'Your lady looks cold Jan.'

He removes his cloak and drapes the heavy material about her shoulders.

Ada grips the green wool gratefully, fingers pale and chill. 'Thank you-' her eyes dip up to meet his and she smiles.

There is a smile of sorts, returned on his wide mouth.

'Your horses are hungry, the snow's starting again,' Dane tells Jaime. 'We have a camp, you'll be safe there.'

'You would offer us shelter? You know nothing of us.'

Dane shrugs. 'We give what we can, do we need to be wary of you?'

'We mean you no harm.'

'Then you are welcome.'

Jaime helps Ada back up onto Brego and when she grabs his shoulder anxiously he puts a warm, intimate hand on her knee and squeezes gently.

He leads the black, walks beside Dane.

'Do many pass through here then?' he asks, stroking the black horse's nose absently.

'A fair few. But we're not robbers, we don't steal.'

'I never suggested it.'

'Have you seen any soldiers on the road?'

Dane casts him a sharp look. 'A fair few, but they were rivermen or northerners. No Leffords or Lannisters to worry you.'

Then walk on.

'You look familiar,' Dane speaks suddenly, his pale blue gaze taking Jaime in carefully.

'I have one of those faces.' Jaime grins through the scruff of his beard.

Dane's head quirks, a pale eyebrow raises.

They continue in silence, until Dane puts up a hand and the little group stops.

'Dismount,' he tells Ada, and to her surprise and Jaime's annoyance, he helps her down from the grey; hands warm at her waist.

'We'll need to go on in single file, quietly.' He tells her softly, his breath close in her ear.

They've come to a part where the snow covered trees have fallen away suddenly. A great rift in the forest floor leads down into darkness and along the near side a path winds against the sheer face and the drop below.

Dane takes Ada's hand, fingers warm and rough and she finds they've laced together neatly, his palm large and tight against hers. The horse tails behind, Idan follows with Jaime and then the other three, weapons at their hips.

The drop is huge, and Ada feels fear creeping up her legs threatening to pin her to the spot.

But his steady grip is oddly comforting and he glances back and gives her a brief warm smile.

Her heart thuds.

The path is icy and there's a few times when her boots skid under her, but she manages to right herself, gripping his hand tightly.

The camp appears, tucked into the steep valley and hidden by the thick trees and guarded on the far side by the gully.

Idan takes the horses from them and Jaime and Ada are left standing at the centre of the circle of makeshift dwellings as the others busy themselves with fire and food and bedding.

Jaime takes her shoulders possessively, draws her back against his chest and rests his chin on her head. Forearms crossed over her collarbones, his fingers dug into her upper arms.

He's solid and warm, and she's grateful.

•

'What do you know of the queen?' Ada asks Dane that evening as they sit crowded into one of the huts, eating hot stew from wooden bowls.

Dane casts a blue gaze in her direction. Shrugs.

'Enough. More than many, less than most.'

Ada finds his way of speaking both irritating and endearing. 'And spoken plainly?'

'She's a beauty, but a cold hearted bitch. Her love is reserved only for her children, and I've heard tell her brother - who can call himself father to all of them.'

She sets aside her bowl and plays self consciously with the hem of her shirt. 'What does she look like?'

Dane stares into the fire, as though conjuring up an image of the queen in the flames so he can describe it to her. 'Fair, pale. Hair like spun gold, eyes sharp and green as jewels and lips as red any rose.'

Ada feels her belly drop. Jaime, she had supposed, would call her beautiful. His lover and his twin. But Dane has called her beautiful too. There will be no getting away from it.

'Such beauty twinned with power is surely too much?'

Dane nods his agreement. 'It would drive lesser women quite mad.' And he sends her a smile that she misses.

'Do you think her beautiful?' Ada asks suddenly, looking hard at the side of Dane's brown face.

'What a thing to ask!'

'I'm just curious.'

'And what will you think of me if I say yes?' He regards her with curious blue eyes.

'I wouldn't think you any less of a man.'

'And if I said no?'

'I would think you no man at all, for I've heard she's the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms.'

He laughs at that. 'Then for the sake of my manhood, as much as my dignity, I shall say yes - but grudgingly, mind, because I can see you have taken against her. And I should not want to upset such a lovely face as yours.'

Ada flushes.

Across the room, Jaime fumes.

•

_Bit of a slow burner this chappie, I admit. But necessary! and if anyone notices the Thor/Loki quote I'll be very impressed!_

_Your thoughts? Any characters you want included, or comments on Dane or any other OCs? I love you all to bits, and can't wait to read your views._

_Love, LB_


	10. Found Wanting

To all of you wonderful people who have reviewed or favourited or alerted - THANK YOU SO MUCH. You have seriously made my month, and I'm not exaggerating - 51 reviews, WOW! You guys are the best.

There is no better tonic when you're stuck on a story than the knowledge that people are enjoying it and want to read more! I've finally barrelled through this chapter and there will be another one imminently - probably tomorrow :) Things get a little bit steamier in this chapter, but not too much - don't worry, there will be some Jaime-lovin' coming up for all you deserving readers.

RJM - You're right, she did idolise Jaime a little too much, but as you'll see, he's falling from his pedestal pretty swiftly. She's dealing with things quite well at the moment, I agree, but we'll see how she manages with the backstabbing and viciousness of Jaime's courtlife when they finally get there! Thank for your review my lovely.

Bluefish - Hehehe, I welcome all geeks and avengers fans! Well spotted. So pleased you're enjoying it, and here is your update for you! Enjoy.

Guest - Well, I aim to please! Glad you're so excited, thanks for your lovely words :)

Annii - Don't worry! Small blip over, subsequently, I will force myself to be much quicker so that you can have your fanfic feels :) I'm flattered you're enjoying it so much. Thanks for the lovely review sweetie, and who doesn't want a jealous Jaime eh?

Happy Reading Folks.

.

**Chapter Nine**

**Found Wanting**

_'I've heard she's the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms.'_

_He laughs at that. 'Then for the sake of my manhood, as much as my dignity, I shall say yes - but grudgingly, mind, because I can see you have taken against her. And I should not want to upset such a lovely face as yours.'_

_Ada flushes._

_Across the room, Jaime fumes._

•

They have been a week with Dane and his men. If Jaime permits himself to think it, the rest has been welcome. The hours of sun are noticeably shorter, day opening late and casting long shadows across the snow smudged ground and then scurrying away quickly to leave long and cold nights in it's stead. There's been no fresh snowfall so the frozen earth shows beneath the white ice, like the sores of a bedridden man, dark and oozing from the meltwater. Grass is sparse, poking up here and there through the forest floor leaving little for the horses to forage. By day they set them roaming, letting them graze on what they can in the area round the camp. There is little more for humans to eat. Dane and his men had a store prepared, but the weather had come on so fierce and unexpected that supplies are dwindling. They will be forced to move on soon, or press their guests to leave. Jaime prays one of the two will come soon - he feels the road calling him. But Ada will stay as long as they are welcome, and Jaime knows he cannot leave her. Not after his promise to take her to Harrenhal.

He's come back from an unsuccessful hunt, having following Dane and Ada into the deeper woods and then marching off on his own path, trailing what he had thought were deer tracks and unwilling to follow the two and hear their close, easy conversation. Soon, however, the trail had disappeared and the rabbits he had caught tearing up what grass there was to offer had scarpered before his preoccupied mind could respond.

Now he enters the clearing empty handed, save for the bow he had been leant and the short blade at his hip.

Idan, the man who speaks little but seems to know more than he is letting on, sits by the fire, legs stretched out and peeling some indistinguishable root with obvious concentration.

Jaime hunkers down beside him on the frozen ground and puts his palms out towards the flames.

'No luck then?' Idan asks after a moment.

'No, nothing.'

'Perhaps Ada and Dane will be luckier.'

Jaime's mind turns to things dark and muddy. 'Perhaps,' he says, picking up a loose twig and poking it into the embers to watch it crackle and burn.

They sit in a companionable silence for a moment, the sound of Idan's knife scraping over the roots and the drip from the trees above setting up a strange rhythm in Jaime's mind. He lets his haunches drop down until he's seated beside the other man and crooks his knees with his elbows twitched round them.

'How do things fare in Kingslanding, do you know?' Jaime tries to make it sound offhand, casual.

Idan shrugs, scraping. 'Badly, so I hear. They say there have been riots, Stannis Baratheon was coming in by sea last thing I heard, hoping to take the city by force.'

Jaime's heart quickens a pace, worry for his sister building. He must ask. 'And the King, his mother?'

'Joffrey? Hiding I should think!' Jaime does not doubt it, or at least playing at war and then letting other men do the dying… 'As for the Queen, they say she has taken comfort in the arms of other men since the death of the King and then the capture of her brother by the Stark boy.' Idan illustrates his point by jabbing the short knife north into the trees, in some demonstration of where Robb Stark might be.

Jaime stiffens, nose flaring. _Other lovers…_ 'Oh yes?'

'They say she chooses them for their likeness to her twin. Lancel Lannister, for his hair and his eyes. Kettleback is said to have the Kingslayer's arse, and Moon Boy makes jests the way her brother did-' Idan pulls up his shoulders and laughs. 'But it is just rumours, prattle from village women. Truth be told I have not set foot in Kingslanding for nearly two years. Could be a ruin for all I know, or the queen could be as pious as a priest. But 'tis unlikely.' His boots retrench their heels into the soft ashy ground surrounding the fire and he leans forward over his knees, conversation complete; returning to the consuming task of peeling tough, woody roots.

Jaime feels a real, sudden sickness at the thought of anyone else in his sister's bed. He has been more loyal to his sister than he has ever been to anyone in his long career as Kingsguard and she repays him by taking other men between her lily-white legs. Osmund Kettleback? _Moonboy…_

A shiver of righteous outrage, which he swallows heavily. She has been his prize for all these long months, he reminds himself firmly. He will deal with the lovers when he has sated himself with her skin once more, he won't take away the one thing that keeps him walking. Harrenhal is almost within reach, Kingslanding just a little farther. But there's something in his belly that has gone sour at the memory of his twin's sweet flesh, the thought of Cersei arouses something other than lust. He can hear Ada, that soft angry voice resonating about his head. _I think I will go mad with it! Fuck your sister all you want, throw as many boys from towers as you like, I don't care. I just want to go home._ And his own mad, forceful thoughts of grabbing her and kissing her.

_She cared then, surely?_ He thinks, as he narrows his eyes against the stinging smoke guttering across from the fire. _She cared enough to be upset about him doing something so abhorrent. That must count for something?_ But it's a small reassurance, which dwindles even farther when he looks up at the sound of crunching footfalls and catches Ada's steely glance as she and Dane enter the clearing.

Jaime's head is a turmoil. He remembers vividly - as though her hand had left some kind of burning imprint on his skin - the way she had grabbed his shoulder for support when they first met Dane on the road. The desperate clutch of her fingers dug into his muscle. She had needed him… He _wants_ her to need him.

He decides to stare stonily at Dane who, ever successful, has a deer carcass slung over his left shoulder. Jaime scowls and stands.

'No luck then Jan?' Dane asks. Jaime stings from the question, fixes him with a look.

'I would have thought that was obvious,' he says flatly, letting his eyes linger disparagingly on Dane's broad features.

Dane pulls a face. 'This should suffice for today and tomorrow. Better luck next time.'

Jaime pulls a wretched smile, so sharp and white that even Ada, who knows his temper and his moods well, feels chilled. 'Thank you,' he tells Dane and stalks away towards the trees above the camp.

At first he thinks he's made it out alone. Starting to sense the settlement and the human trace of the clearing fall away behind him. Leaving just the crunch of the ground and snow beneath his boots and the chill breeze through his rotted shirt. But his ears soon pick out the crack of puddles breaking underfoot and the huff of laboured breathing as someone tries to catch up with his long strides.

He knows who it is before she calls him back.

'Jaime!'

He doesn't turn, but he slows his pace a little, the steeper slope causing him to grab for a strong, young birch just above him so that he can steady himself on the hard ground.

'Jaime, stop.'

She sounds angry. Good.

He hears her swear and then the heavier crack as she starts to scramble up to catch his retreating figure.

She reaches him sooner than he had anticipated and the wrench on his elbow finds him a little off-guard. He whips round, towering over her even more than usual with the slope so much in his favour.

'What?' He raises a blond eyebrow.

'I can't believe how rude you're being!' she tells him, bright eyes glaring up at him from the folds of her cloak hood._ Dane's cloak_, he thinks sourly. 'These men took us in when they had no obligation to. They've fed us and kept us from getting killed or strung up by any of Robb Stark's men and you decide now is the time for a stupid feud of some sort!' She shakes her head. 'Arrogance I expect from you Jaime, but not rudeness. Not purposefully.'

Jaime draws up his lip into a sneer. 'I'm sorry, did I embarrass you in front of Dane?'

Her eyes, usually soft and smiling, are steely. 'No Jaime, you embarrassed yourself.'

He looks off to the side, into the deep dark of the trees and draws his brows into a heavy scowl. 'I don't give a damn what people think of me.'

Ada snorts. 'Pull the other one Jaime, it's got fucking bells on it.'

Jaime, unaware of the expression, lets it pass by and just picks up the general gist of her angry retort. 'You think I care what these outlaws make of me? Once we've moved on from here, do you think we'll ever see them again? What do you plan to do Ada, stay here forever holed up in this forest with Dane? Eating roots and scrabbling in the dirt for your food, _fucking_ like animals in a dingy little wood cabin-'

He almost hears the slap before he feels it.

His cheek pulses where she's struck him, angry and stinging. He can actually feel the outline of each slender finger, the pads and the firm heel of her thumb. He forces himself not to bring a hand up to his face, instead his nose flares and he turns a furious gaze down on her.

'You know what, Kingslayer?' Her voice is little above a whisper. 'I think I'd rather spend the rest of my life with him than go another step with you.'

And she whips around with such violence that on the hard, icy ground of the steep slope she skids and starts to fall. Jaime grabs her about the waist unthinkingly, fingers tight in her shirt and hauling her upright. He can feel the warmth of her skin through the thin material of her clothes, his palms pressed against her ribs and the thin skin covering them. Her back is flush to his belly and chest, the scent of her hair - spice and musk and scalp, playing over his senses like alcohol.

It is in that moment, even as she wrenches herself from his grip and stomps off down the slope without a backwards glance, that he wants her. He wants _her_.

•

Dane is cautious. It's Ada who meets their lips first, chapped skin catching a little as their mouths brush. But she's been hungry for too long to let him go and her fingers twine into his short hair quickly, his square, warm palms coming up to cup her cheeks.

He breaks off, pulls back, breathing heavy. 'What about Jan?' he asks, fingers deep in her hair.

She looks at him, at his blye eyes and his warm open face. No secrets. No painful past. Nothing. 'What about him?' she breathes and kisses him again.

The hut is soon full of heat and warmth and the press of skin on skin. Ada will not think of Jaime. Not once.

Dane is soft and sure, undressing her reverently and setting his mouth in open kisses to each inch of skin revealed. But he makes a blunder. His sensitivity loses her. He pauses, gives her time to breathe. Asks her if she wants him to go on.

Ada stares, eyes wide, at him set between her legs. Brown and stocky and sincere. But he's not lean enough, not tall or snarky enough, not bearded or scabbed or beaten. Not Jaime. She hates herself for it. _What is wrong with her?_ Here is a man, a kind, sweet man who reminded her of Phil in so many ways. Who never made her want to kick him in painful places, or drove her mad with annoyance. Never said stupid, arrogant, brash things or forced her to feel emotions she didn't want to feel. And yet here she is, about to tell him that she can't go through with this. Because someone else is too much in her mind.

She falls back a little, onto her elbows, feeling suddenly too bare. Naked under his gaze in a way that she doesn't want to be. There's nothing to cover her up, so she has to lie open. Exposed.

'You want me to stop.' He says flatly, sensing her unease. 'Tell me Ada, you want me to stop.'

She's warm in the bed, the two of them skin to skin. The night outside is cold. 'I do.' She whispers, drawing him down onto her chest, folding her arms about his broad shoulders. 'Stop, lets stop this.'

Dane settles heavily against her, huffing slightly. 'What are we doing?'

'I-'

'You love him don't you?' he murmurs into her skin, breath hot. 'Jan.'

Ada closes her eyes and imagines that it's Jaime pressed close to her, against her. In her. She wants him so much it burns and she hates herself for it.

'But I can't have him.' She tells Dane's scalp, threading her fingers through his hair.

'Does he not love you?' Dane turns them over in the furs, curls round her, strong arms about her waist and his legs spooned up behind hers.

Ada tries to ignore his question, pretend she's drifting, sleeping.

'Ada?' he presses.

But she does not answer and so he falls silent. His breathing deepens into a rasp in his throat, his body easing out behind her until he's asleep, wrapped tightly round her in the warmth of the cabin. In the morning, she knows, Jaime will come looking for her in the hut she usually shares with Sasha. But the boy will be snoring on the floor and her pallet will be empty and then he'll know. And when she sees him next his eyes will be dark with some kind of understanding. And that will be that. Even though Dane is asleep behind her and all Ada can think about is Jaime.

•

See y'all again tomorrow! Until then


	11. Rain Clouds

**Chapter Ten**

**Rain Clouds**

_In the morning, she knows, Jaime will come looking for her in the hut she usually shares with Sasha. But the boy will be asleep on the floor and her pallet will be empty and then he'll know. And when she sees him next his eyes will be dark with some kind of understanding. And that will be that. Even though Dane is asleep and all Ada can think about is Jaime._

_**•**_

She had been right. Jaime had gone in to find her that next morning and retreated from the hut, feeling something akin to betrayal charring in his belly. He had known instantly where she would be, but could not bring himself to push open the door to Dane's cabin and be faced with the sight of them together. He spends the first few hours of daylight avoiding her and stuffing his worn boots with old sheep's wool which he had found in a mildewed sack the day before, trapped behind a barrel of pine sap in one of the dugout store houses. Today is warmer than the days before, the breeze has dropped and the mottled blanket of snow clouds has lifted to reveal patches of blue sky. All the same, Jaime is grateful for the extra warmth round his cold feet.

It's not until the late afternoon that Jaime finds himself alone with Ada once more. The sun, cast low now in the darkly clouded sky, blinds him as he climbs up the narrow slope to the ridge of roots and bare branched trees to the west of the camp. He does not see her until he is almost on-top of her.

Ada glance back at the sound of his footsteps and, to Jaime's amusement, flushes to the roots of her hair and turns about quickly. He assumes she is embarrassed by how she had spoken to him yesterday afternoon. But Ada's thoughts are on Dane and last night and how she had wished Jaime had been the one in her bed. At the sight of him, her cheeks burn, but her thoughts cool considerably when she remembers how angry she had been.

She casts him a quick scowl and goes back to leaning against the tree, watching a flock of birds shrink smaller and smaller into the dimming sky.

Jaime, hiding a cocky smile, crunches up the last meter of ground and comes to stand behind her.

'Don't say _anything_,' Ada warns, not looking at him.

Jaime opens his mouth, the corner turning up into a smile he can't contain and then shuts it again, smirking. He sniffs. 'As you wish.'

She can hear him breathing and thinks how purposefully close he's standing. She's about to say something about it, but their tense silence is interrupted by Nate calling out to them.

Ada turns, determinedly not meeting Jaime's eye.

'Hey,' Nate offers her a thin lipped smile. 'Don't s'pose you could do me a favour - we're running low on kindling, there's a bunch of pines a bit farther that way and the cones light easy. You couldn't fetch a few could you?'

Ada nods, holding out her hand for the sack he's offering. 'Sure, no problem.'

'Thank you.' He crunches away.

Ada looks down at the empty sack and sighs heavily.

'I'll come with you,' comes Jaime's inevitable offer over her shoulder. 'You're not safe on your own.'

Ada wants to say something mean, that will remind him how pissed off she is and warn him to back-off. But she craves his company more than the satisfaction that putting him down a peg or two offers. So she just sets off without a word and waits for him to follow.

'You look nice today,' he tells her as they walk.

Ada rolls her eyes and says nothing.

'Something happen last night to make you all flushed and pretty?'

Ada clenches her jaw and stomps on. He did _not_ just pull that string.

'No?'

'No,' she growls, kicking at a submerged log and sending up a spray of soft snow.

'Only I went looking for you this morning and you weren't in your bed.' Jaime is dogged.

Ada glances round at him to catch his mood, but his face is solemn and dark. She turns back. 'Sasha snores too loudly. I slept in another hut.'

'Oh yes?'

'Yes.' _Fuck you Jaime,_ she thinks.

'Dane's.' It's not a question. So she doesn't answer.

Jaime's jaw tightens imperceptibly, and he puts up a hand to smooth his hair back from his temple, a nervous tick she's noticed.

They've reached the pines, the tang of the sap in the air returned with the warmer day. The earth doesn't smell so cold, scents rise now that everything isn't frozen solid. Ada can smell resin and bark and the deep, organic sweet of the soil beneath her feet.

She sets the bag on the ground and starts throwing the sharp, round cones in. She thinks of asking Jaime to help, but that would seem like she needed him here and she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction.

'Did you fuck him?' Jaime asks after a few minutes, his voice neutral and low.

Ada looks up through a curtain of dark curls and finds to her horror that her cheeks are burning once more, in the dim light she hopes he doesn't notice. His gaze is on her, his face more haggard than she has seen it in weeks; when he dips his head she can see a shadow of the skull he will leave to the earth. The jutting cheekbones, the teeth behind his lips.

'No,' she tells him, working her jaw. 'I didn't _fuck_ him.'

Jaime's face seems to loosen a little, his mouth works downward and his eyes - drawn into shrewd slits - clear and widen. 'Why not?' it's a soft, light question. Not what she had been expecting.

Ada sits back on her heels and pushes her hair back from her face and looks up at him. 'Because I didn't want to,' she says evenly. 'Because-' her eyes can't linger on his perfect features, so she looks down at her boots. 'Because I wanted someone else.'

She hears Jaime's thick swallow, looks up to see his adams-apple bob once, twice.

'Who?'

He wants her to say it, she knows he does.

Ada stands and brushes down the knees of her breeches, levels herself with him.

'You,' she tells him, and looks up into his face.

There, now she's said it.

Jaime's bottom lip drops a little to show the white reveal of his teeth and the tip of his tongue flicks out to wet his mouth. 'Why did you spend the night with him, if you want me? Can you tell me it meant nothing? And what about Phil, do you choose me over him?' His bright green eyes, shadowed by the oncoming darkness search her face. Challenge her. 'What was it Ada, with Dane?'

Her mouth opens a little, her tongue touches behind her teeth. 'Flirting… Just, flirting nothing more.' She looks down at his forearms, crossed over his abdomen and places a hand on the narrow joint of his wrist. 'I'm lonely and scared and I don't know if I'll ever see Phil again. It was just- it was nothing Jaime, it meant nothing.'

His brows raise, his upper lip curls and his eyes cloud with disbelief. 'Nothing?' A blond eyebrow flicks.

Anger lights in her chest. 'No, maybe not quite nothing. It wasn't you Jaime because you seemed so bloody distant all the time - thinking about your golden twin and your shiny armour and important family. Dane seemed to understand what it's like to be scared and small. Not to be sure all the time and make a joke of everything, like nothing's important - or to be so disgracefully arrogant!' She lets go of his arm and swipes at a curl that is fluttering across her face. 'I felt understood, he wanted to know me Jaime, that's all. Which, can I add, is a sight more than you've ever done! So if you don't like it, you can go fuck yourself.'

'Or,' Jaime cocks his head and smiles smugly. 'You could do that for me.'

'Ugh!' she turns away angrily. 'You're impossible!'

But Jaime grabs her arm and turns her round, his face suddenly earnest.

'Jealousy stokes the fire of longing, isn't that what they say?'

Ada falters. 'I- I don't know.'

His fingers start to stroke over the bare skin beneath his hand and it sends shivers - like the thin cracks in the iced surface of a puddle - down her spine.

'I was jealous of Dane, Addy. I'm jealous of him now. I want you for my own.'

She slaps him. Not quite so hard as yesterday, but hard all the same. Jaime's look is one of open shock.

'What!'

'You want Cersei!' She shouts, retreating a little so that he can get a better face-full of her anger. 'You want her for your own, but you can't have her so you'll make do with me instead! Well screw you Jaime Lannister! I will not play second fiddle to your twin.'

She's storming away from him and he has to run to catch up with her, turn her about sharply and pull her to him, mouth pressed to hers despite her growl. He speaks against her teeth, his words dangerous and feline.

'I'm sick of being beaten for my love. I loved badly, I know. It was poorly done - but I could not help it.' He's breathing harshly, hot air flushing down over her chin and his eyes so close to hers she can see the dark pools of his pupils. Her own face reflected in them. 'And now that she's cut me all to ribbons with her scheming and her bitterness, I want to throw down what has been and pick up something new.' His hands tighten over the small of her back. 'Will you not let me love you? I long for something that does not make me bleed when I touch it - your skin is not barbed like hers-' he strokes her cheek and her eyes flicker closed, partly at his touch and partly at his closeness. 'You have no thorns, Ada. Only the semblance of them. Your sweetness has no poison... Give me love that is tender and true, not cursed and spat upon. Let me have sweet, soft whispers, rather than the harsh chink of gold.' He shakes a little in his anguish. 'My love for Cersei has grown sour. I long for you, I dream of _you_. Addy…'

When he puts his hand up to her face, cups her cheek, his palm is big enough to cover her from ear to the line of her straight nose. His thumb brushes away salty tears in a swift move and his fingers curl into the dip behind her jaw.

Ada's mouth opens and drops a reedy word into the air. 'Jai…'

Rain patters down onto them through the trees and she turns her face up to catch it on her lips, letting her tears mingle with the water from the heavens. Jaime looks up too, eyes squinting against the downpour, letting it run against his skin and through his beard, trickle down the sides of his throat and soak into his shirt.

When he looks down, Ada returns her gaze to him.

There's a tension hanging about his narrow frame, as though he's worried she'll scream and cry. Lash out like a wild thing or take off again, stumbling away from him. The muscles in his jaw twitch, his cheek is tense.

Somehow looking down at her, he looks haggard. His body might be that of a young man, but his eyes are old. His nose seems sharper, his cheeks worn. Tightness clings to his forehead and she sees his adams-apple bob anxiously.

The hollow cave of his chest looks so quiet and defeated, the hard muscles beneath the once dark-crimson shirt shadowed by a tired frame. Ada presses herself into that cave, her arms tangling haphazard round his narrow hips and her face buried in the shirt that's damp with rain. The fabric scratches against her cheek.

She feels him sigh raggedly, his left hand coming up to cup the back of her head and hold it to his chest. 'I love you, Little Fox,' comes his voice, rumbling through his chest and through hers too. 'Let me love you.'

A thousand unsung answers, a thousand plausible protests, but they all die on her tongue, turning to ash as he kisses her.

His mouth is warm and damp with rain, plush skin soft and insistent. The beard scratches against her chin and the bristles on his upper lip prickle. His nose, broad and long bumps against hers, presses to her cheek as he angles his jaw to deepen the kiss. Tentatively, she lets her mouth slip open and meets his tongue as it wets her bottom lip, his breath in her mouth.

But their moment is broken by a shout in the still air, shattering their peace and cutting above the low patter of the rainfall. Ada draws back from Jaime, one hand still dug into the thick hair at the back of his head, finds his gaze and they listen together, breathing quietly.

The shout again, louder and wilder. Then more, the clash of weapons.

'Dane,' Jaime whispers, dropping his head so that his nose lies flat against hers, eyes closed. 'Fighting.'

Ada's breathing starts a little heavier in her throat and her heart thuds faster. 'Bollocks…' she whispers.

Jaime's hand reaches for hers, grips it tightly. 'Stay close,' he tells her, and they start up the slope towards the road, Jaime grasping the pommel of the blade at his hip.

•

A thousand thanks to my three reviewers so far. As for the rest of you lurkers, hope this chapter proves sufficient for you to a drop a quick line. There's nothing better than hearing from my readers and I love you all to pieces!

LailaBurns.


	12. A Glancing Blow

Just a suggestion for a musical accompaniment for this chapter, I wrote it listening to this on repeat: (YouTube) watch?v=BPrIPmQzCQw  
so you have it to thank for the prompt update. Sons and Daughters - by Agnes Obel. Enjoy!

.

**Chapter Eleven**

**A Glancing Blow**

_Their moment is broken by a shout in the still air, shattering their peace and cutting above the low patter of the rainfall. Ada draws back from Jaime, one hand still dug into the thick hair at the back of his head, finds his gaze and they listen together, breathing quietly._

_The shout again, louder and wilder. Then more, the clash of weapons._

_'Dane,' Jaime whispers, dropping his head so that his nose lies flat against hers, eyes closed. 'Fighting.'_

_Ada's breathing starts a little heavier in her throat and her heart thuds faster. 'Bollocks…' she whispers._

_Jaime's hand reaches for hers, grips it tightly. 'Stay close,' he tells her, and they start up the slope towards the road, Jaime grasping the pommel of the blade at his hip._

**•**

Jaime's fingers tighten through hers, dug into her palm as they near the road and he draws them behind a thicket until she's crouching down amongst the rotting leaves. She can make out the dark shapes of men against blue-grey banks caked with snow, the leafless trees shiver about them and there's the clash of steel. The rough breathing of people fighting for their lives.

Jaime obscures her distant view, his body broad as he positions himself in front of her. Ada's eyes, wide and a little glazed find his. 'Who is it?' she whispers, reaching out and clutching at his shoulder for balance. 'Northmen?'

'I'm not sure,' Jaime tells her. 'But I need you to stay here, do you understand? Stay safe, I'll come and get you when it's done.'

'What if it's not done? What if there's too many of them?' Her fingers tighten.

'Shhh…' Jaime soothes, shaking his head a little. 'I think we can chase off a few Northerners too far from home for their own good. Just stay out of the fighting, promise me?'

Ada knows he feels back in control, there's a lazier tone to his rich voice and a humour in his eyes that both warms and riles her. He thinks he's won. He thinks she's beaten.

And she is, for now.

She leans forward and catches his mouth with a fumbling kiss - she can hardly see him for the dark in the shadow of the thorns. 'Stay alive,' she whispers against his lips.

'I'll certainly do my best.'

And he's away.

Ada falls back into the dark, damp of the undergrowth, fingers clutched tightly round the knife at her belt.

Through a gap in the trees and bushes, the road is clear. Northmen, their armour dark and obvious against the snow, run across the window made by branches and undergrowth. Ada squints against the dim twilight and the reemerging rain, looking for a glimpse of Jaime or Dane.

•

Jaime skirts round the trees, counting men. Six- Seven armour clad Northerners. Dane, and then Sasha and Idan further along the road. Nate closest to him. A scouting party perhaps, but everything about the situation is screaming at Jaime that these men are not alone. No horses, no provisions. Just light armour and weapons. There's probably a caravan of them further down the road, waiting to hear back from their seven outliers.

He goes in swiftly, as he always does. Falls upon a man from behind and draws a dagger across his throat before he can make a sound.

Nate catches his eye through the rain and they exchange curt nods.

As the situation stands, Jaime thinks he could win this with only one other man. He's missed fighting, the power.

A scout runs at him from behind, Jaime barely bothers to turn around. Instead, he sidesteps and catches the soldier with a blow across the belly, dragging the edge of his blade along that unprotected place where the leather protector does not reach. The man crumples forward and stains the snow quickly.

Someone runs into Jaime from the side, and he grabs them roughly, trying to keep his feet in the slick, rain soaked snow. It's Sasha. The boy has a bloody gash across his brow and his sword hand is trembling so violently that it's a wonder he's not dropped the blade. Jaime reaches up his hand and wipes a broad thumb through the trail of blood to stop it's path towards Sasha's eyes. The gash is not deep, but as all head wounds are wont to do, it bleeds profusely.

'Hey,' Jaime shakes the boy, meets his gaze squarely. 'You're alright, it's just a head wound. You're alive.'

He claps his hand to Sasha's cheek. 'Be bold, be brave.'

When Jaime looks up, six more men are there to replace the two he has killed. One of the original seven has disappeared, he notes, hearing only distantly the ring of steel and the thunderous patter of rain onto steel and boiled leather. He searches for the man as he fights, only half his mind on the task at hand. His first thought is Ada. If the soldier had gone any distance into the trees to the left of the path he would have found her.

Mind whirring, Jaime trips a man and ignores his cry as he falls onto his own blade.

He scans the trees, soaked through already and his hair, longer now, clinging to his brow.

But she's already out amongst them, over by Idan. The blade of the short knife Dane had given her is bloody. It's half relief, half anger which makes Jaime battle his way over to them.

'I told you to stay in the trees!' he shouts at her, using the pommel of his borrowed sword to knock a Northman over the head.

'The trees weren't as safe as you thought,' she shouts back, retreating behind Idan's tall frame for a moment before crossing to him. 'Besides,' her breath warms his sleeve, voice softer now she's beside him. 'It looked like you needed some help.'

'Go back to the camp,' he tells her, grabbing her under the arm and wheeling her about.

'No!' She digs her heels him and glares up at him.

'Yes.'

'I'm not letting you all kill yourselves out here whilst I hide in a hut waiting for you to come back,' she tells him, baring white teeth and holding his gaze. 'I'm staying.'

Jaime growls in frustration and wrenches her behind him. 'Stay with me,' he tells her, readying himself for the next wave of men. 'And don't do anything stupid.'

Jaime deals with each man as he comes at them, fighting with teeth bared.

Ada's cry makes him turn.

'Sasha!'

His eyes search the boy out amongst the fighters. He's falling back, with a Northman's blade protruding from his narrow chest. A voiceless cry tumbling from paling lips.

Ada starts forward, but Jaime drags her back, an arm over her shoulder and across her chest with his sword slapping against her hip as he pulls her in.

'He's gone,' he tells her, mouth close to her ear, eyes on the boy he had told to be brave. 'He's gone, Ada.'

She goes limp in his arms.

'Stand up, Addy.' He shakes her, painfully aware of the fighting that is circling them. Of the fact that the Northmen are growing and their own numbers have dropped by an all-important one. 'STAND UP!'

His anger forces her into action and she finds her feet.

'Stick with Idan,' he orders.

Skirting round, Jaime finds Dane struggling with three men. Overhead, the heavens rumble. The snow around them is running off in rivulets to form icy streams beneath their feet. The earth beneath, parched by the cold, soaks up both water and blood.

There is a moment when Jaime catches the blond man's pale blue gaze and for a second he thinks he might leave Dane to fate. This man has been in Ada's bed, he's kissed her. He's-

Jaime battles with himself, and Jan wins.

A man is tapped lightly on the shoulder. He turns, broad cold bitten face twisting in confusion as he sees Jaime's broad smile and then the look is frozen as a dagger is slipped through his throat. Blood bursts against Jaime's bare hand and he sets a palm against the man's chest as he falls forward, feeling his heart thunder against his palm. The dagger slips out with the force of the fall and Jaime catches the second man with an ill placed blow over the temple. He stumbles sideways, screaming and clamping his hands over his ear which has torn half away. His blade shatters an icy puddle beneath them as it drops.

Dane, who had slipped and fallen avoiding a deadly swing from the last man, deals with him quickly, forcing his arm up and catching him through the ribs with his long blade. The solider drops forward soundlessly onto Dane and he pushes the man's corpse aside so that he can stand.

Jaime offers him a bloody hand.

Standing, they meet eye to eye. Blue on green. 'Thank you,' Dane tells Jaime, gripping his fingers tightly. 'I owe you my life.'

Jaime finds he can't hold the other man's gaze.

'How many more of these bloody northerners!' It's Nate, gasping and bleeding, at Dane's elbow.

More leather clad men on the road, they can see them fast approaching even through the onslaught of the storm and the encroaching dark. 'We're overrun,' Dane mutters, looking for Idan and finding him. Five against unknown numbers.

Jaime's arm is grabbed again and he almost pulls away, eyes dark with confusion as Dane leans in close. 'Go, go now. Take Ada and run, we'll never stand up against this many. You'll be safer heading east cross country than going North to meet the trident. It'll be swarming with Tullys and Starks.' His mouth is set and his fingers tighten against the lean muscles of Jaime's forearm. 'We'll give you time, as much as we can manage. Go on, hurry!'

And he pushes Jaime away. Jaime staggers a little at the unexpected force, stumbles half round and then looks back, face blank and mouth open a little.

'Dane-' he tries.

'Go!'

He starts away, half running, heading for Ada.

'Send my regards to your father, Ser,' comes Dane's shout over the rush of the rain and the crack of blades. 'And to Kingslanding!'

Jaime's mind stalls. His legs keep moving.

He reaches Ada within a matter of moments. 'Come on, we're going.'

'What?'

He knows she'll struggle, but he hasn't the time or the inclination to deal with her arguments.

'This isn't debatable,' he tells her, sheathing his sword and grabbing her bodily. 'This is it, we're leaving. Back to the camp, now Ada.'

He forces her ahead of him, half tripping into the undergrowth under the shadow of the forest. 'But-' Ada turns about, still moving. 'Dane! What about Dane? And the others?'

'They chose their fates.'

She stares at him, wide eyed until Jaime's patience snaps and he pulls on her arm so hard he thinks he hears the joint crack. 'Shut up and move, we're not going back.'

Ada closes her mouth and is mute for the rest of the stumbling journey back to the camp.

Flames still lick round the remaining logs in the fire pit, everything is as it had been when they had left for kindling a few hours before.

The fire is doused, throwing them into a dim blue half light under the shadow of the trees.

'Collect your things,' Jaime says, pulling her in close and reaching up to cup her face between two warm, calloused palms.

Ada turns her eyes to the ground, biting on her bottom lip and picking at the blood that has dried on her hands.

Jaime looks down at her, then frowns.

'Are you hurt? You're bleeding-' he pulls her arm back from her body and probes carefully at the rip in her shirt where blood has stained the fabric. Ada hisses and draws away, removing her arm from his grip and shielding her side from his attentions. 'It's fine! It's nothing.'

Jaime works his jaw, as though considering whether to insist or not. 'Fine, I'll fetch the horses. Can you ride?'

'Of course, it's just a scratch,' she tells him fiercely and goes to get their things.

They mount up quickly. 'We'll head east.' Jaime pulls in close to her and keeps his horse steady. 'We can make Harrenhal in a few days of hard riding.'

She just nods.

•

Jaime sets a fast pace, Ada is half in a daze. They turn south first, cutting through the forest past the pines and the fighting and into deeper, thicker woods than Ada has seen before in this world. They are forced to slow, the branches are too close and low, the trees too many. Forcing through them would only leave them bloody and scratched all to pieces.

'We'll meet the road again,' Jaime says. 'Then cut across to High Heart. That's about two days riding. Then another day or so to Harrenhal.'

'How do we know your father's still there?'

'We don't.'

They fall silent for a few minutes.

The rain has stopped, Jaime's hair is still stuck to his head in dark strands and Ada can feel herself starting to shiver despite the thick cloak about her shoulders.

'Jaime?'

'Hmm?'

'Did Dane say anything, before we left?'

Jaime glances at her through the darkness, thinks of Dane's last shouted words._ Send my regards to your father, Ser. And to Kingslanding. _He had known then, of course he had known.

Jaime sucks his teeth and glances skyward. A better man than he had given him credit for, to have taken them in, knowing who Jaime was. Another good man sent to his death.

'He said, 'Look after her',' Jaime lies, not letting himself look at Ada.

'Right,' she whispers.

They've crossed the road finally and are headed down towards the lower ground, away from where the slopes are full of trees still laden with red and gold leaves, bleached by the night to look grey and black and nothing more. Ada had stopped on the track, looking North, staring into the darkness as if it will bring news of their companions' fates.

He'd called to her softly, and she'd kicked her horse on, breaking her daze.

Now they're leaving the taller trees behind and clearings are appearing in the darkness, the horses moving faster and their riders feeling lighter hearted.

It's Jaime who pulls up short.

'What is it?' Ada whispers, turning Brego in close and following Jaime's gaze with her own.

'Torches,' he tells her.

'Where?'

'Through the trees, lots of them.'

'Northmen?'

He shakes his head. 'Too late, and too far from the road.'

'Who then?'

'Outlaws maybe, not friends that's for sure. We should go.'

They spur on.

But it's too late.

There are horses everywhere. Narrow, underfed things, with skinny legs and wild eyes. Their riders not much different.

An arrow narrowly misses Ada's cheek, she feels the whistle of wind as it brushes her cheek, the feathered shaft scoring against her skin and leaving a feeling like rope burn in it's wake.

'Stay low!' Jaime warns, ducking down and trying to force his horse towards the trees again. They're exposed, easy targets in the clearing, even with the darkness.

The flares blind her and spook the horses, Ada can feel Brego twitching beneath her. She whispers to him and tries to push him on.

Jaime is struggling with Alba, both urging and cursing the horse - mixing softness with his irritation. More arrows. One finds home.

'Alba!' Ada shouts over the yells of the men and the screaming of the animals. But the black horse will not stand. He rears and bolts and for all Jaime's skill with a horse, he is sent flying. He lands on his back on the frozen ground and skids painfully until he reaches a drift of softer snow and is brought to a halt. Alba flees into the shadow of the trees, trailing his harness and half their pack, with a thick black-fledged arrow buried in his flank.

Jaime tries to sit up, but flops back within a second, wincing.

Ada angles round to put herself and Brego between Jaime and the oncoming horses, using all her strength to pull the big horse about.

'Jai!'

He looks up, a little dazed. 'Get up!' She shouts, holding out a hand to him, ready to pull him up onto the horse.

But she's dragged back from behind and, shouting, is pulled from the saddle.

Brego stamps and snorts, but stands. Ada finds herself staring up at masked faces, held up under her arms. Their features flare and distort in the orange light from the flames. She breathes shallowly, wondering what they plan to do with her. She can smell sweat and blood and smoke filling her nose.

Somewhere, Jaime is talking. She can hear him. By the tone she knows he's being flippant and she's certain that will not go down well.

When they set her down, Jaime is standing again and she watches, horrified, as he head-butts one of the masked men. There's a welter of sound and shouts, Jaime elbows one of them in the face and a third one goes down with Jaime's dagger in his belly.

Hell breaks loose. Everything is fractured by the flaring, blinding torches. Bits of men, elbows and long noses. Wide, wild eyes.

They crowd round him. Grabbing his arms and pulling his head back by the hair. Jaime yells and Ada tries to run forward, but she's held back by a hand in her curls, wrenching her neck painfully.

They've got him pinioned, a man holds a stone pulled up from the snow crusted ground.

Jaime is dealt a glancing blow. Then another.

'No, STOP!' she screams, clawing and biting and fighting against the hands holding her. Desperate. Throat raw. 'You'll kill him, you fuckers! You're going to kill him!'

The men pull him up again, Jaime's head dropping and then righting itself, eyes glazed. Blood trails down from a wound on his scalp and his nose looks broken, red trails dripping down to his lips.

His mouth is open, half open, half in glazed pain.

She cries out in upset and fury, nearly pulling her arms from their sockets in her attempt to reach him.

The stone is raised again, already bloody from the three loose blows he's been dealt. Ada grits her teeth and screams through them, fighting bitterly.

They have to hold him up high, under his armpits for the other man to strike him across the face, the blow cracking against his cheek.

The sound is a physical pain for her. Jaime goes limp in his captors' arms. Blood spatters down onto the icy ground, stains the whiteness of the snow Lannister crimson.

'What do you want?' she sobs, shaking.

'For you to shut up, would be a start,' says a man's voice behind her.

She's certain she hears the thunder of hooves before they do. She stiffens first, then a man behind her falls forward, an arrow sticking up from the space between his shoulders. One fletched with red feathers.

Jaime is dropped.

Ada struggles free, grabs for Brego.

By the flares, she can make out red breastplates and dim gold round the crests of their helmets. But her mind does not fit the colours together. She just shrinks away, Brego's nose at her sleeve and headed for Jaime.

He's just conscious, blinking his eyes open as she shakes him and propping himself up to spit a gob of red onto the ground. She trembles as she helps him up, his body nearly too heavy to support. How she gets him onto the horse she'll never know. Sheer determination.

They slip away unnoticed, quiet shadows with only the flare Ada had grabbed up from the ground for light.

They go for half an hour, maybe more. Ada isn't sure. She's not even sure they're headed in the right direction. The trees should be getting thinner, surely? As they reach the lowlands… But Jaime's head is lolling against her shoulder and his grip round her waist is loosening. It's time to stop and rest.

Ada drops down from the saddle, but Jaime topples.

With steady hands she ties the horse and then crosses to him, falling to her knees and turning him over gently.

Blood has trickled in horizontal lines across his cheek from his nose which looks broken for sure. His cheek and eye are swelling and red cracks in the creases of his eyes, the wounds on his brow open and raw. Carefully, she settles herself beside him on the leaf strewn ground and sets his broken face on her lap. Her fingers stroke back the matted strands of hair from his forehead, skirt the head wounds, touch lightly over the swelling - hands cool.

By some miracle, he stirs.

She bends over him, hands moving restlessly against his skin. Beneath her trembling hands, she can feel his heart, fast and terrified as a mouse's. Alive in his chest, betraying his fear.

His mouth cracks painfully open, eyes caked with blood and his vision half red. 'Damn… I should be dead...' he whispers, wincing at the pain in his head. Like a thousand hammers, all cracking against the inside of his skull. Blinding pain. Pain that makes him sick to his stomach.

Her lips press to his brow and Jaime lets his eyes flutter closed.

'It's alright, they're gone. We got away, it's alright.'

Her breath flutters erratically over his face. She's frightened for him, he realises.

'How?'

It hurts to swallow. Everything hurts.

'They were ambushed, I didn't see who- But I got us away. Don't you remember?'

He cracks his eyes open again. She's blurry above him, dark and upside down with her hair falling about his face and her mouth downturned. 'How bad do I look?'

Her hands sketch his face. He looks shattered, broken. Not her beautiful knight, but a skull cracked by too many blows. Just thin flesh over fragile white bone. It makes her want to cry. But she leans over him and dips down to kiss his lips.

'As handsome as ever,' she tells him.

But he laughs chokingly and gives a tiny, pained shake of his head. 'Don't- Ada, I won't break if you tell me I'm broken.'

'Just a little round the edges then,' she manages, tracing the sides of his face. 'Nothing I can't mend.'

They lapse into silence. After a few minutes, she kneels up. 'Can you sit up?'

They manage a crawl, over to the nearest upright trunk and Jaime leans against it, breathing shallowly. When she joins him, drops the flare on the damp ground beside him, he settles his head in her lap once more.

'The torch is going to go out,' she murmurs, watching it's slow progress towards the tapered end of the wad of cloth, fingers in his hair.

'Let it,' Jaime whispers. 'The light hurts my head.'

She stamps it out herself and the darkness swallows the embers.

'I think they were Lannisters,' she tells him softly. 'I should have talked to them, but I wasn't sure. We could be on our way to Harrenhal by now… I'm sorry Jai.'

'Hush,' his voice threads through the darkness. 'There's no reason for you to have known. And besides, who's to say they would have recognised me? We'd probably be chained up and taken for prisoners. I don't think even my brother would recognise me as Jaime Lannister looking like this.'

Ada leans down and breathes in the scent of his scalp.

The night is not so dark as it was before, soft and pale grey, like the thinning charcoal rings under his eyes. She plaits their fingers roughly, catching the pads of her free hand over the hairs of his arm, searching out the tight wrist joints and the strength in his hands.

And so rosy dawn creeps in and finds Jaime fast asleep, and Ada not far behind. To the North, the river runs, unhindered by the snow and ice. Down where to where it is still autumn and winter is a chill in the air and little more.

•

So, dear lovely readers. There it is! One more chapter for you all. Hope you enjoyed it, and I can't wait for your feedback!

Next time: Harrenhal, Tywin and a Young Wolf - exciting stuff!  
LailaBurns.


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